Mass Effect: Rise of the Phoenix
by Vox351
Summary: Self Insert. As a young Marine sent to the Mass Effect universe, I arrive 7 years before the events of the first game and enlist in the Alliance. Terrorists, Slavers, Mercenaries, Assassin's...oh and a little thing called the Skyllian Blitz. Those are just a few things I have to deal with before Saren and Sovereign show up!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello Everyone,**

**I used to write here under a different account called Kinvarus but since then I have lost access to it and had to create a new account, but I am back.**

**I'm really only mentioning this because I wrote another Mass Effect SI called Mass Affected, and although this is not a reboot of that story, I have transferred a few aspects of it into this one and figured it was better to explain that here and get it out the way, plus it's a good way of grabbing the attention of any former readers of mine who will hopefully give this one a chance too.**

**So with my little rant over, I'll with the standard disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, it's copyrighted to Bioware and EA, but original characters are mine yada yada. Now that's enough from me, let's get on with it shall we?**

**Enjoy.**

_BEGIN RECORDING…_

_Life is a funny thing. You never know what it's going to throw at you or where you'll end up when it's all said and done. I've always believed that you choose your own path in life and you walk it, making your own way. That there is no such thing as fate…destiny whatever you want to call it, that free will is something we all possess. _

_The ability to make our own decisions and that the choices we make are what ultimately define our lives, and not that life is pre-determined, that someone or something, somewhere hasn't already decided it for us, like a pawn on a chessboard, our every moves having already been made._

_However as I sit here recording this and think about my life up until this point I can't help but question that belief. _

_My name is Robert Kincaid, and at the time this story begins I was 20 years old, my eyes are hazel and my hair is dirty blonde in colour, which I keep in a faux-hawk most of the time and I have an eidetic memory._

_I was born in New York City and when I'm not working, I've really only got three hobbies: video games, playing the guitar and Ice Hockey. As far as video games go there is one specific game series in particular that I loved. It was called Mass Effect and was made by a company called Bioware. _

_The second is the guitar, although mostly I stick to playing cover versions since my song writing sucks._

_As for the Ice Hockey, some of you sports fans may have seen it in the history vids but for those of you who don't all you really need to know is that it's an old human game played on Earth with sticks, a puck and a whole lot of ice…although not many people play it nowadays…but I'm getting off track._

_My father was part of the United States Marine Corps before he died. I idolised my Dad growing up, he was a stand-up guy, a hero. He taught me the basics when I was little, how to fight, how to disarm an opponent and when I was older how to shoot, much to my mother's annoyance. My mother was a surgeon, a pretty good one too and worked in a local New York hospital. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was 10, after which I went into foster care._

_Like my father I followed in his footsteps and enlisted in the Marines when I was old enough, I had been serving on the front lines for 3 years when my world got turned around._

_My story begins on January 17__th__ 2176…well actually that's a lie…sort of, it actually started a good 167 years before that, when fate would intervene and change my life forever._

_The year is 2009, that was when I found myself in a place that in my universe only existed in a series of Video Games called Mass Effect…_

_END RECORDING…_

**Location: Midtown Manhattan; New York City, NY**

**Date: October 15****th**** 2009**

The day started like every other day since I'd gotten back from my last tour of duty, I woke up, had some breakfast, went for a run around Central Park and then back home for a little gaming. I'd decided to start another play through of Mass Effect since Mass Effect 2 was due to come out in January.

I'd just finished battling Matriarch Benezia on Noveria when there was a knock at my door, pausing the game I crossed my apartment and opened it. However, instead of seeing a person like I had expected there to be was instead a parcel addressed to me.

I glanced both ways down the hall to see if anyone was watching me before taking the package inside, surprised at how heavy it was and wondered what it could be, considering I hadn't ordered anything. Placing it on the table in my kitchen, I retrieved a knife to open it and carefully cut along the sides and the top of the box.

Within the packaging was a large metallic box with what appeared to be blue crystals embedded into the box's smooth surface. I carefully lifted it out of the packaging and placed it on the table.

The box itself was smooth to the touch and each side was decorated with a blue crystal, each one differed slightly in shape. Something about the metal and the crystals was familiar to me but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. As I continued my examination I discovered an indentation along one of the sides, giving the impression that the box could be opened. As I rotated the box to study the final side I saw a little slot about 2 inches in length, most likely for a key.

With a frown I picked up the cardboard box and looked inside for the key but the box was empty and wondered who would send me a box but not include the key to open it? I spent the next few minutes staring at the box, confused as to why somebody would send this to me in the first place and what was contained within it.

Shaking my head I picked up the knife I had used to open the packaging and tried to open the box with it…needless to say it didn't work. Sighing I stood up and put the knife back in the draw, choosing to leave the box on the table for now, since it would appear as though I wouldn't be able to open it. Thinking that maybe whoever delivered the box would realise there wasn't a key and deliver that too.

I left the kitchen, making my way back into the living room and over to the couch to resume my Mass Effect game, passing several family pictures as I went. Most of them were of my parents and me when I was a kid although there was one or two of my Dad in his uniform either just before he was deployed or when he came back, one of my Mom in her scrubs before she went to work and a couple from shortly before they died.

Usually I only give them a quick glance and not pay much attention to them, however today something in one of the pictures caused me to stop and take a closer look at it. It was a picture taken when I was 6 or 7 years old shortly before Dad was sent on another deployment, I can't remember what happened on the day the photo was taken, but what caught my eye was the pendant my mother was wearing.

It was a silver, lightning bolt shaped necklace with a series of blue crystals going down it. I picked up the picture and went back into the kitchen to look at the box and compared the crystals on it with the ones on my mother's necklace and was shocked to see that they were identical.

"What the hell…" I muttered as my gaze darted from the box to the photo and back again. At least that would explain the familiarity I had with the box but it must be a coincidence, it had to be right? But that little voice in the back of my head told me that it wasn't a coincidence and soon found myself heading towards the attic in search of my mother's pendant.

Several hours and many; many boxes later I had finally found the pendant and headed back downstairs and into the kitchen. I stared at the pendant in my hand, then over to the box and back to the pendant again, mentally debating with myself over whether to try the pendant in that slot or not.

With a shrug I slowly inserted the pendant into the slot and heard it click into place, it seemed to fit as if the two were designed that way. After a moment's hesitation I gently tried turning the pendant as if it were a key and watched intently as it did indeed turn until coming to a stop, yet the box didn't open, even after I tried pulling at where I thought the indentations were.

"Well that was uneventful." I muttered as I reached forward to remove the pendant. It was then that the box started to vibrate. The blue crystals on the sides of box started to glow a few seconds later. I grabbed the pendant and tried to remove it but it wouldn't budge, even when I tried to turn it back the opposite way.

I took a few steps back wondering what the hell this thing was. My immediate thought was that it was a bomb, so turning on my heel I started running towards the exit, if I could pull the fire alarm in the hall maybe there would be enough time for the other residents to evacuate, I glanced back towards the box to see that it too had started glowing, an almost blinding, white hot light emanating from it and seemed to expand outwards filling the room. Then the light engulfed me and everything went dark…

When I regained consciousness I found myself in an area filled with nothing but while light for as far as the eye could see.

_Am I dead? _I thought as I took in my surroundings. Now I'm not a religious person but I'd heard about the afterlife from various sources and beliefs and in none of them was it described as…well a large, empty white room.

"Hello!" I called out as I took a few steps forward, and yet seemingly going nowhere. "Is anybody here?"

Trying not to panic I started thinking of explanations, either I was dead, or dying and this white 'room' for lack of a better word was just a mental image produced by the last electrical neurons and impulses firing in my brain, I'm just unconscious and this is a very strange dream. Or I'm in a coma.

After a few moments though I felt a presence behind me and turned to see what looked to be my parents standing a few feet away, watching me. _OK so maybe I am dead. _I thought.

"No you are not dead child." My 'Mother' said.

"Are you sure? Because I think I am. I mean I'm standing here talking to my dead parents."

The man smiled "We are not your parents; we are only using their image to communicate with you."

I blinked, this was getting weirder and weirder "Oookaaay, so if you're not my parents then who are you?"

"My name is Azeriea and this is Reyoln." The women looking like my mother answered "And we are two of the last surviving Protheans."

I blinked a few times before laughing "OK so I am dead then…well either that or dying, dreaming or lost my mind because the Protheans aren't real, they're a fictional species from a video game." I answered.

"This is true in this reality." Reyoln said "However in our reality the events and history of the video game you call Mass Effect are very real."

I stared at the two before folding my arms across my chest "OK I'll play along, if you are the last of the Protheans why are you here?"

Azeriea was the one who answered "As I am sure you know the Reapers were almost successful in wiping our species from existence 50,000 years ago."

I nodded, still not buying any of this "Yeah, everyone except the scientists on Ilos."

"That is correct." Azeriea nodded "However, Ilos was not the only Prothean planet the Reapers were not aware of; there was another, an unnamed world hidden on the edge of the known Galaxy, accessible through only one Relay."

"Why did nobody know about this world? Especially the Reapers?" I asked.

"We discovered the Relay by accident while exploring a previously unexplored region of space and travelled through it. On the other side was a single planet. We decided to use this planet as a place to conduct more hazardous research." Reyoln continued.

I raised an eyebrow "Hazardous research?"

"Yes. As a result we used several ships to move the Relay away from known space lanes and hid it inside a nebula. Only those of us who worked on the planet knew of its location. When the Reapers attacked we received the message through a beacon and remained hidden. It was clear that we would not win the war and with no way of knowing about Ilos we stayed away, venturing out with the few ships we had every few years. By the time the Reapers had returned to Dark Space only one ship and five of our race remained." Azeriea added before Reyoln took over again.

"We spent the next several years continuing our research until we completed it."

I had to admit I was starting to believe their story but I was curious about this mystery research of theirs.

"It started as research into designing portable Mass Relay's for use on ships but after the Reaper invasion we started looking into rebuilding our technology as well as theory's on space and time, hoping to find a way to go back and save our race from extinction, but we failed." Azeriea spoke, the sadness still in her voice.

"However during one test we inadvertently opened a rift to this reality and after some research discovered that the Reapers did not exist here and never had."

I nodded finally catching up "And I'm guessing you discovered the Mass Effect games too."

"Yes." Reyoln replied.

"OK but that still doesn't explain what you're doing here now." I replied "Wherever here is."

Azeriea smiled "We are in your subconscious mind; it is the only way we could speak to you."

I blinked "Okay, why do you want to speak to me?" I asked.

Azeriea paused and glanced over at Reyoln who nodded.

"We need your help."

I chuckled "You need my help?"

"Yes. We looked at many people but chose you as the best candidate to help prevent the Reapers from destroying all life in the galaxy again." Azeriea continued.

"Me? But I'm just a soldier, surely you had better people."

"It is true that there are many people who have played the games and know what is to come but we did not know them as well as you and the type of person you are."

"What does that mean?" I asked, watching as the two exchanged another look.

"We spent a long time observing you as you grew up." Reyoln answered before smiling. "One of the advantages of reality shifting."

I blinked "Okay second question: How you are here?"

"Our research lasted many years after the Reapers attack and involved several other projects, one of which was the box you opened. It contains many things, including our consciousness, which is how we are communicating with you now."

It was then that I remembered something "Wait if you created the box, then you also created my mother's pendant I'm guessing." And saw the two of them smile.

"Yes we did."

"But my Mom's had it since I was a baby." I replied, confused.

"We know, as we said our project lasted a long time and opening the rift to this reality was one of the first things we accomplished after the Reaper war and after discovering the Mass Effect games we studied your reality and after choosing you we returned to our reality and researched…."

"Time travel." I interrupted "It had to have been the only way for you to have sent the pendant back."

Azeriea smiled "Yes, we could not reverse time in our universe however we could here and as such returned and…'possessed' for lack of a better term your parents to make sure that you would eventually receive the pendant. However after we saw your parents die it was unclear if you would leave…"

"Wait." I said interrupting them "You saw my parent's death? Yet you didn't prevent it?"

"We could not, to do so would change the person you would become." Reyoln answered.

"The person I would…what the hell are you talking about?" I yelled.

"Your parent's death has changed you. You are a stronger person now as a result; if they had not died you would not be you. Please understand when we first saw you, you were a few years older than you are now after which we went back and observed you, if we had prevented your parents death the Robert Kincaid that we observed then, the person you are now would not be the same had we intervened."

I supposed I couldn't argue with them on their logic and my parent's death was history for me, it was the life I had, no point complaining about something that had already happened right?

"OK so what do you need my help with?" I asked.

"While some things in these Mass Effect games are similar, real life may not turn out the same way. What happened to our race 50,000 years ago has already happened, there is no way to undo it, and this Commander Shepard may not be able to stop them, not without your help, that is assume that he or she even exists."

OK now I'll admit as cool as that sounded hearing that shifted my belief firmly back to the 'This is not happening' stage. "So what I'm some kind of…chosen one?" I laughed.

"No, you are simply someone who will have more knowledge of what may happen and how to counteract those events should they occur." Reyoln replied.

As I thought about it I had to admit that what they were saying made sense, and it did reflect what I knew to be true from the game. Not to mention the fact that the box, my Mom's pendant and even this conversation all happening at the same time…it had to be true; otherwise this is one hell of a big coincidence. I could feel the two of them watching me as I thought about it.

"I'll do it." I said, with a nod of my head. "If what you say is true and that my presence could help stop the Reapers from continuing their cycle of galactic extinction then I can't sit back and do nothing about it."

The two Protheans smiled "We knew we had made the right choice when we chose you." Reyoln said.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"Once you leave here you will wake up in your home." Reyoln began "Turn the pendant and remove it, then press the crystals in the following order." An image flashed through my mind of the different crystals.

"Then insert the pendant and turn it, it will open a portal to our reality. Pick up the box and step through it. Anything you are carrying on your person will be brought with you but nothing else, in case there is anything you would like to bring with you." Reyoln finished.

"Got it." I replied just before everything went dark again.

I woke up on the living room floor and saw that everything was the way it should have been and the box was on the kitchen table. I walked over to it and removed the pendant. I only really wanted to take a few things with me, my dog tags, a few pictures of my family, and my guitar, since it was the last thing my parents had brought me before they died.

With everything collected I headed back into the kitchen and pushed the crystals in the order I had seen in my head and inserted the pendant. I paused and took one last look around my apartment before turning it, gasping when what looked to be a large ball of Element Zero opened up in front of me. I picked up the box and stepped through into my new life…


	2. Chapter 2: New Beginnings

**Chapter 2: New Beginning**

**Location: Unnamed Prothean Planet**

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I emerged from the portal to find myself standing in the centre of what appeared to be an advanced control room. Glancing around I could see several computer terminals, a VI interface and, looming in one corner what was unmistakably a Prothean Beacon, which looked similar to the ones that appear in the game, only twice the size, the top of the Beacon barely avoiding the ceiling which caused me to wonder how exactly they got it in here in the first place.

"This place is amazing." I said aloud as I crossed the room towards the VI terminal, which looked similar to Vigil's one on Ilos. As I got nearer to it the VI activated and Reyoln's digital image appeared.

"Welcome to our reality Robert, I'm sure you have many questions, all the information you need to know is stored in the computers here. I am sure you have noticed the Beacon. We have uploaded all the information you will require to survive here into it."

The beacon contains the vision of our destruction that was transmitted through the beacons and the cypher to understand them." The VI answered.

"Well okay then." I muttered, figuring that that was all I would need in terms of helping Shepard.

With a nod I walked over to the beacon and felt it pulling me towards it once it lit up, before I was lifted into the air. At first nothing happened but then I felt a small tingle inside my head before images and words flashed across my vision.

I winced as the vision I had seen countless times during my Mass Effect runs, images of the Reapers annihilating the Prothean's and extinguishing all life in the galaxy etched itself into my brain. It seemed to last an eternity and I was starting to think that the beacon would never release me, but finally the beacon shut down and I was dropped to the floor.

I clutched my head as it throbbed and I could feel my mind adjusting to all the new information in there.

"Ow…my brain feels like its three sizes bigger than my head." I groaned as I waited for the pain to fade.

When it started to pass I stood up and turned to look at Reyoln. "Reyoln what's the date?" I asked.

"The Earth date is January 17th 2176."

"2176?" I yelled "But Saren and Sovereign won't arrive until 2183, what the hell am I going to do for 7 years?"

"Prepare." Reyoln replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

With a sigh I stood up and made my way over to the computers where I spent the next several hours studying up on the history of the galaxy, although most of it was covered in the game and the books. After finding a map of the facility and a datapad, I downloaded it and decided to explore a little.

The map showed that the majority of the facility was underground and consisted of one large central hub containing the base entrance, living area, control room and hanger bay. With five more buildings to the North, South, East and West, all interconnected with long passageways.

The walls were shiny metallic silver with bluish/white lights illuminating the hallways. To the North of the Central Hub as I called it were the research labs, the Western building held the power distribution section, the South housed the computer mainframes and the Eastern building was labelled as the Production Facility.

I remained in the Central Hub and headed for the living areas. They were mostly what you would expect. Numerous rooms filled with individual rooms, some with single beds and others with larger double beds for couples and what I guessed was a mess hall where everyone gathered to eat meals and talk when not working before heading towards the laboratories to the north.

The doors opened to reveal a large reception area, with doors to the north, east and west, each of them labelled. The western door was labelled Weapons Lab, the north Bio Lab and the east Technical lab. It took me a moment to realise that the signs were all in Prothean and that I had been reading it as natural as I did English, which was pretty cool.

My first destination was of course the Tech lab and although there was a lot of cool stuff there, I had no idea what any of it did, so playing it safe I left it alone, although I would definitely be studying it all eventually.

I went to the bio lab next although unlike the Tech lab, which had been full of toys, the bio lab was pretty much empty apart from what looked to be a large gas chamber in the far corner of the room, with a small window to see through, or look out of when inside.

I walked over to it and looked through the glass. The inside was large enough for someone to fit into with a little moving space with what looked like a futuristic looking alien dentist's chair in the centre of the room. Finally there were several holes in the floor and ceiling, which I could tell by following the pipes I could see led to more piping outside the chamber.

I spotted another VI terminal and activated it, wanting to know what the chamber was for, although I was surprised when it was Azeriea's form that appeared and not Reyoln's as I had expected.

"Hello Robert." The VI said as it came online "I see you have made it to the Biological Lab."

"Yeah." I replied "I'm just curious, what's this chamber for?"

"The chamber is designed to expose people to what you call Element Zero."

I glanced over at the chamber, a small grin forming on my face as my mind started filling in the blacks "To create Biotics I would assume."

"Yes, what you call Biotics our race mastered centuries ago and knowing the benefits of such abilities perfected ways of accessing the element zero without the need for technology, however not all members of our race had the nodules in our bodies, so our scientists began studying ways of creating those nodules safely in those who did not have them."

I turned my gaze back to the VI "We're you successful?" I asked.

"After several long years of research yes, this chamber however is configured to be used by humans." The VI answered.

"Humans?" I repeated.

"Yes, once we discovered your reality and decided to bring someone from there here we began reconfiguring the chamber to work on human physiology on the assumption that having the abilities provided by Element Zero exposure would assist in the battle with the Reapers, if the individual of course chose to go through with the procedure." Azeriea's VI answered.

Now I will admit that I was pretty much ready to jump straight into the thing and do it, because hey who doesn't want to have Biotics right? Luckily I refrained from that since I got the impression that there was probably a catch, I mean there always is right?

"It can't be that simple though, there must be risks."

"There are. Although creating the nodules of Element Zero in the body is a simple thing to do, allowing someone to tap into them and use them naturally without the use of technology requires several alterations to the nervous system. If you are considering it I can say that it is highly unlikely that anything will go wrong, but the risk is always there."

I nodded as I glanced back at the chamber, mentally weighing up the options, before coming to the conclusion that if it could help in the fight with the Reapers then it was worth the risk.

"So how does it work?" I asked.

"The entire process is automated, if you decide to go through with the procedure, simply enter the chamber and sit in the chair. My program with begin the process. Restraints in the table will secure you before you will be injected with a serum to render you unconscious, at which point several serums will be injected into your body and begin to rewrite parts of your genetic code to allow for the formation of Element Zero nodes.

Then your central nervous system will be altered to allow the Element Zero to pass through your body without causing harm to you. The final stage will expose you to high amounts of Element Zero we collected and stored here before we died."

I blinked as my mind processed all of that before determining that I really wished I hadn't asked. "Okay then." Was the only thing I could think of to reply.

"You should be aware however that there is a chance that the procedure will not work at all, as I stated, despite our advances in technology and our study of Humans, this process has never been tested before."

"Well as long as it doesn't kill me…" I muttered.

"There are safety systems in place to ensure that that will not happen, if it does not work your nervous system will still function normally but the nodules that store element zero simply will not form."

Glancing back at the chamber I took a deep breath and sighed "Oh what the hell…" I muttered "Let's do it."

I entered the chamber and sat down on the chair, watching as the door sealed and locked. The chamber started to hum as it powered up, before large metal restraints slid out from somewhere on the chair and locked over my arms, chest and legs. A few mental images of various horror movies I had seen flashed through my mind's eye. However before I could start to worry about it I felt a prick in my neck and before I knew it I was out cold.

_I stood in the centre of a street watching as what I assumed were Prothean's in their natural form running through the streets as they were chased by Husks. The Prothean military forces proving support and cover fire for the civilians as they made their way through the streets, searching for safety._

_I turned in a circle as I saw Husks and Prothean's drop like flies, the life being extinguished from them as the fighting continued, while buildings burned all around me. I heard a loud yet distinctively familiar noise howling in the air, forcing me to look skyward in time to see a Reaper descending through the clouds, its long arms expanding as it prepared to land. To say it was huge would be a gigantic understatement. _

_From the centre a large red light started to glow, and judging from the other Reaper's I could see in the distance knew it was a weapon. Around me other Prothean's had noticed it as well and were pointing and yelling to retreat. _

_The Reaper fired and I could only watch as the red laser carved its way through the sky, through buildings to the ground, ripping up the concrete, Husks and Prothean's in its path like a hot knife through butter, annihilating anything and everything in its path of destruction._

_The beam stopped for what I could only guess was a recharge as the few survivors who managed to avoid it started running like hell for whatever cover they could find, although having seen that Reaper beam in action I doubt that anywhere would be safe from it._

_As the scrambled to get away from the machine it fired again, killing everybody as it's beam fired again before heading towards where I was standing… _

I bolted upright in a blind panic, feeling my heart beating so fast I thought it was going to burst through my chest. My head spun in every direction faster than it would seem my brain could take to process what I was seeing, before I eventually realised that I was back in the chamber within the lab.

Closing my eyes I tried to take some deep breaths to calm myself down, realising that what I had experienced was the vision from the beacon of the Prothean's destruction. I ran my slightly shaky hands through my hair and over my face as I felt my heart beat start to slow down and slowly stood up, trying to push the residual images of the vision out of my mind for the time being and started walking towards the chamber door, watching it open with a click and a slight hiss as I approached.

Stepping out of the chamber I saw Azeriea's VI waiting for me and tilted my neck from side to side, hearing it click in the process, something I do whenever I'm about to go into a fight…or when I'm nervous.

"Hello Robert, how do you feel?" the VI asked, although I assumed it was more an inquiry related to the chamber experiment than anything else, which I had actually forgotten about due to the vision I had witnessed while I was unconscious.

Taking a moment to think on that, I realised that I felt perfectly fine "I feel fine." I answered and watched as the VI pointed towards a round shape on the floor, which I had failed to notice when I had first entered the room.

"Please stand there for me, it will activate a scanner which will tell us if the procedure was successful."

With a nod I walked over and stood in the centre of the circle, watching as it started to glow a light blue around the edge before another light descended from above me and started running over me. As the scan continued a hologram appeared infront of me, this one of a human skeletal structure, which I assumed was me. Now I'm not a doctor but everything appeared to look normal to me.

"So…?" I asked Azeriea once the scan has finished.

"You are in perfect physical health Robert, however it would appear as though the procedure was not successful, despite the changes to your nervous system, there are no indications of Element Zero nodules present in your body." The VI replied.

Although I had to admit I was a little disappointed I shook it off, after all you can't really miss what you never had "Well it was worth a shot anyway, and it didn't kill me which is always a plus."

"There was never a possibility that the procedure would kill you."

"I know it was just a…never mind." I replied as I headed towards the exit.

Next I decided to head to the weapons lab, the place that would definitely suit me better, although I was in for disappointment since when I arrived the lab was empty. With a sigh I realised why Reyoln's VI had meant when he said that I would have to prepare.

Leaving the Weapon's Lab I decided to check out the Production facility, although I didn't expect to find much there either. It seemed that whatever resources the Prothean's did have here had been used up a long time ago.

The entrance to the facility looked like a large reception area, illuminated with white lights. The walls were the same silver metal as the rest of the facility I had seen so far. There was a flash of colour to my right and turned to see Azeriea's VI appear.

"Welcome to the production facility. Due to our distance from the rest of our worlds and the secretive nature of our work, this facility was designed to help up produce anything we may have needed for our work. However as the war continued, resources started to dwindle and the facility was shut down for many years.

The facility was divided into different sections, each which focussed on a specific area. Weapon Lab, Technological Lab and Starship Production." Azeriea said.

I nodded "That could come in handy."

"I am afraid I must deliver some bad news Robert." Azeriea announced "There was an explosion in the weapon labs which also destroyed the Starship production facility as well and with the extinction of the rest of our race it is impossible to repair them."

I almost yelled in frustration as I turned to glare at the VI "So pretty much all the help you could give me is pretty much a vision of how your race was annihilated, something that Shepard will probably get anyway. You really aren't making this easy for me."

The VI did not reply. With a sigh and a shake of my head I looked away from it and looked around the room "What about the Tech lab?" I asked.

"The Technological Lab is located on the other side of the facility, far enough away from the other two to avoid the explosion. It is where we manufactured the box we sent you, as well as your mother's pendant."

I nodded but since technology really isn't my strong suit I didn't really feel the need to explore it and turned on my heel to leave.

"There is something in the Tech lab for you." Azeriea's VI said, causing me to stop and turn to look at it.

"Oh?"

"Yes, we did not bring you here and leave you with nothing to assist you. What you will find in there will help you."

I looked at the VI for a moment before replying "So what it is?"

Instead of answering me, I watched as the door on the wall opposite me opened to reveal what appeared to be an elevator leading to the Tech lab. I glanced over at the VI in time to see it disappear.

"So I guess I'm going down there then." I muttered as I walked over to the elevator and stepped inside.

It didn't take long to descend into the lab and stepped out into a large open room, lined with several computers along either side of the room and a large machine in the centre of it, which I assumed was used to actually fabricate whatever they created.

However I didn't see anything that could help me and wondered what the VI had meant when it said there was something down here for me. I took a step forward to explore the room when a bright green light filled the room.

**Lifesign detected, analysing…**

I heard a voice say and glanced around the room, looking for something and wishing I had a weapon, the thought entering my head that maybe, just maybe I had been tricked but before I could react the voice spoke again.

**Species: Human, Analysing DNA…DNA Pattern recognised…**

"Okaaay." I muttered as the green light seemed to contract, instead focussing on a single point a few paces in front of me and took the form of another VI, this one green in colour instead of the orange form that Reyoln and Azeriea's had taken.

**Hello Robert Kincaid, it is good to finally meet you. I am glad you decided to come to this reality and help defend it from the Reapers.**

I blinked as the VI spoke to me "Uh…I'm glad to hear that." I replied. "If I may ask, who are you?"

**I am Delta. **The VI answered.

"Delta." I repeated "And you were created to assist me I'm told."

**That is correct.**

"Well I guess having a Prothean VI could come in handy." I thought allowed.

**You are mistaken Robert Kincaid, I am not a VI, I am an AI.**

"You're an AI?" I asked.

**That is correct, I was created to provide you with information and help guide you during your assimilation into this reality. I am also capable of adapting as I am exposed to new data.**

"So you're a sentient AI then?" I asked.

**That is correct.**

"Well uh…no offence but if this reality is anything like I expect it to be then the people here do have a good reason for fearing AI's."

**I assume you are referring to the Geth. I was created by the Prothean's to help you, that is my purpose.**

I paused, thinking of what to say next as I knew the AI wasn't understanding what I was saying "I know that it's what you were created to do, but I guess what I'm asking is, is it what you want to do?" and watched as the AI seemed to think about it.

**Robert Kincaid, you gave up your existence in your own reality to come here and assist this reality, you were not programmed to do so. It was your choice to make. May I ask you a question?**

I looked at the AI and nodded "Sure."

**What would you do if I was to say no?**

"I uh…" I paused "I don't know what you mean. Do you mean in terms of preparing for and fighting the Reapers or in regards of what I would do with you?"

There was a pause as the AI seemed to think about it. **Both.**

"Well…" I began, taking a deep breath "I was only told you were created a few minutes before I came down here into this lab so I wasn't expecting to have an AI helping me before so I guess I would do whatever I could, the way I might have originally done it…if that makes sense." I said with a frown. "As for you…I honestly don't know."

There was another pause as the AI flickered.

**When I was created I was not given a choice until you gave me one. Free will is a choice that all sentient species, be they organic, synthetic or electronic have. The Reaper's do not give species the choice to live or not, they simply destroy. Before you gave me the choice I did not know what free will was, besides a definition of the word. You chose to come to this reality and help stop the Reapers did you not?**

"I did." I replied.

**Then I choose to help you Robert Kincaid.**

I nodded "Thank you Delta, I think I'm going to need it. I'm already feel like I'm in over my head here."

**Understandable given the situation.**

"So uh…I take it you can leave this room then?" I asked.

**I can.**

The AI glanced to a metallic table to my left, and I watched as a small section of the table top slid open and a small…well it looked like a micro-sd card appeared.

**I can download my program into this datachip, you can then insert me into an Omni-Tool should you procure one, if not I can be integrated into certain forms of Armour assuming they have a VI interface, as well as any system inside this facility.**

"Good to know, well I'll take the chip for now and you can download yourself into it when we leave."

**Understood Robert Kincaid.**

When the AI said that I knew I had to add something "Oh and Delta?"

**Yes?**

"You can just call me Robert."

**As you wish, I will upload myself into the main computer system now.**

I watched as Delta's image flickered and disappeared as he uploaded himself to the main system, and turned to head for the elevator and took it to the main facility entrance and heading back to the control room, where I had first arrived.

"So Rob, let's recap." I said aloud as I walked down the corridor "Your in what was once a fictional reality, you have no guns, no armour, the only help you have is a 50,000 year old Prothean AI and the thing you came here to help stop won't occur for another 7 years…" I paused and shook my head with a snort "I feel like I'm stuck in a bad fan fiction story...Well I guess as far as new beginnings go, it could be worse."


	3. Chapter 3: Back to Civilisation

**Howdy all,**

**Thanks for the reviews, favourites and subs to this story; it makes me a happy author **

** CuHnadian**** Thanks for the welcome back **** Don't worry the questions that weren't answered will be answered at some point in the story. And I do agree with you on the character growth, especially in relations to Farcry 3, which was awesome, I do have plans for other ways the character will grow in the future.**

**Note: This will be a very short Chapter, just to get Robert and Delta off of the planet and through the Relay. Chapter 4 will be where things start happening and will return to long chapters. **

**Anyway I'm sure you didn't come here to read my random musings so on with the story.**

**Chapter 3: Back to Civilisation **

"Urgh, I may have spoken too soon on the whole could be worse thing." I muttered as I ate what barely passed as food on this base. To their credit the Protheans had done their best to recreate human food but even though it would sustain me they hadn't got the taste quite right. Seriously I've had field rations that tasted better.

After leaving the Tech lab I'd headed to the living area for some food and took a brief nap before heading back to the Control Room, where I has spent the last few hours going through the files on the computer system. I still didn't know what I was going to do with myself for the next 7 years but I'm sure I would figure something out, the one thing I did know was that there was very little for me to do here, although there were a few things on my mind, which apparently Delta could tell.

**Is there a problem Robert? **The AI asked.

"Huh?" I asked as I glanced up from the data I was looking at "Oh uh just thinking how I'm going to get a job here when I don't exist." I replied and frowned when the information I had been looking at changed to display a biography of myself.

"What's this?" I asked.

**This is your record of your birth and existence in this universe. **Delta answered.

I blinked in confusion "What? But how…?"

**The Protheans known as Reyoln and Azeriea spent many years observing you, during which time they learned about you and stored that information here when they returned and began preparing for your arrival. Using that information I have created a biography for you and will upload once I have access to a computer system.**

"You can do that?" I asked.

**Of course.**

"Sweet." I muttered as I read through the information Delta had created, to his credit most of it matched up with my real history, the only exceptions being my military service and my date of birth, which had been altered to 2156.

"Well then I guess we should head back to civilisation then." I said once I finished reading through my new life history. "I assume there's a ship here or something?"

**Yes, there is an old Prothean shuttle in the hanger bay that can get us through the Relay.**

I nodded as I stood upand collected the few things I had brought with me, deciding to leave the large metal box here.

"Hey Delta, can you start shutting this place down to avoid using any power?" I replied.

**I can start by shutting down power in the individual sections of the facility and shut down main power once we are aboard the shuttle.**

"Great." I replied "What about you, is there a place near the hanger where we can download your program into your chip?"

**There is a computer terminal in the hanger bay, insert the chip into it and I can download myself from there.**

"Got it." I replied as I headed towards the door. It took about 5 minutes to get from the control room to the hanger bay, and I was surprised to see that the Prothean shuttle looked a bit like Kodiak drop shuttle, although a bit sleeker looking and slightly older, some of its hull markings and paint having worn away over time.

I headed over to the computer and spotted the slot where Delta's chip would probably fit and slid it in. "Okay Delta your chip is in the terminal."

**Understood, I have programmed the facility to power down 5 minutes after the shuttle has departed.**

"Good thinking Delta." I replied.

**Thank you, transferring program…transfer complete you may now remove the chip.**

Doing as I was asked I removed the chip and made my way into the shuttle and sat down at the controls, realising that I already knew how to fly it. _Guess they included that bit of information in the beacon _I thought, well they did say they included everything I needed to know in it, it would seem that I came with an instruction manual.

It was pretty creepy how I instinctually managed to power up the small craft and lead it out of the hanger, as if I had been doing it for years, even though this was my first time. All those thoughts were replaced however when we broke atmosphere and entered open space, then I reverted to a 6 year old, completely excited by the fact I was in space, something I never dreamed would happen in my life. It was an awesome experience I can tell you, I mean I was in a freakin' spaceship flying through space, how awesome was that! In the distance I could just about make out the Mass Relay and it was huge.

After we passed through the relay the star chart in the ship's computer told showed us that we were in the Calypsos system on the edge of Citadel Space, luckily the Relay wasn't that far away but once we arrived, we had to jump to the Edolus System and then use that Relay to jump to the Citadel. A journey which the computer approximated would take a good 5 hours.

With nothing else to do I sat back, relax and thought about what I was going to do with myself since I couldn't exactly wing it for the next 7 years, oh well at least I have 5 hours to think about it…

**Well like I said folks a very short chapter, a mini one if you will but things will return to normal in the next chapter, I just really wanted to get that bit out the way. I hope to get the next chapter up either today or tomorrow all being well.**


	4. Chapter 4: Unexpected Encounters

** CuHnadian I didn't know that about Delta in RvB I stopped watching it back when they were using the Halo 1 engine during the original S1 Blood Gultch storyline, so he must have appeared after that. I just couldn't remember seeing a pure green AI in ME and Delta was the first name that came to me.**

**Biotic wise I think that if it's going to be done in an SI then it needs to be handled correctly, both in terms of how the SI gets the ability and that they need to suck at using them for a long time after they gain it, since everybody else besides the Asari needs training in Biotics an SI should be the same. With that said I'm not opposed to having Rob gain Biotics in the future which is why I had the nervous system adaption be a success to leave that possibility open in the future, if it actually happens or not I haven't decided yet but if he does he'll definitely be very bad at using them for a long time. **

**In regards to the flying in space thing, I totally agree! I'm always wondered why nobody ever mentions that. As for the base it's pretty useless right now by design but it will be expanded on in the future. For me it made sense that since the Prothean's hid there during the Reaper purge that they would send him there where they knew he would be safe on arrival…plus too many SI's drop themselves onto the Citadel at the very beginning. I will say I have plans for the base though, although most of that will mostly be featured during the 2 year period between ME 1 and ME 2.**

**As for Rob not learning anything yet…he's going to get a huge wakeup call shortly in regards to what he thinks he knows compared to what he actually knows.**

**Chapter 4: Unexpected Encounters**

I was sitting in the pilot's seat of the shuttle with my feet up on the console as we flew through space, we'd just past the two hour mark in our five hour journey to the Citadel, and although I still hadn't decided on what I was going to do until 2183 I had a few ideas.

Getting some Credits would have to be high on the list, which lead me to my first idea, become a Mercenary. The pay would be good and I'd be able to hone my skills while I waited, maybe make a few contacts as well. Then again I could always enlist in the Alliance, it was the Military after all and I was in the Military…well I used to be anyway, I just hoped the Alliance never kept the USMC records from back then.

Delta had spent the trip creating an entire history for me which he would upload as soon as he could access the Extranet, I'd read what he'd done so far and it certainly sounded believable, hell if I hadn't known the truth I would have believed it.

With nothing else to do I had spent an hour strumming away on my guitar, mostly out of pure boredom, I can honestly say that space travel by yourself can be incredibly boring. I put the guitar back in its bag and turned my thoughts towards my plans. My first thought was joining the Alliance, being a Marine anyway it seemed like the most obvious choice.

Then again I could try my hand at being a Mercenary, the pay would probably be good, maybe make some contacts I could use in the future, or hell maybe I could just look for a band to join for a few years, earn some credits and then when it's closer to Sovereign arriving start preparing.

With that thought it finally hit me, what a gigantic situation I had put myself in. _What the hell was I thinking? _I thought as the doubts started filling my head _This is insane, I don't have any business being here, I should have just stayed in my own reality, sure there were wars and everything but nothing like giant space robots wanting to eradicate all life in the galaxy…_

I was brought out of my thoughts by a sudden shaking of the shuttle, it was so intense I was thrown from my seat.

"What the hell was that!?" I yelled as I stood up, only to be knocked back down again as the shuttle shook again.

**We are being fired upon by an unknown vessel, I am attempting to evade them.**

"How about shooting back at them?" I asked as I managed to pull myself to my feet and scramble back to my chair.

**This is a shuttle Robert; it does not have any weapons.**

"Well that's just perfect." I muttered as I took the controls, narrowly avoiding a laser blast to my port side. However I couldn't dodge the second and third, which impacted the rear of the shuttle, causing an explosion that sent the shuttle into a tailspin.

**Direct hit to the port engine **Delta announced as the shuttle's systems kicked in to compensate. The advantage was that while we were spinning it was a lot hard for our attackers to shoot us, the disadvantage was that we couldn't fly.

As the galaxy span around outside the cockpit I saw a planet, I didn't know what planet it was and neither did I care. Whoever was shooting at me outgunned the tiny Prothean shuttle and there was no way I was going to survive the fight in it.

"Delta, does this ship has a distress beacon or something?" I asked.

**Of course.**

"Good, find out what planet that is and launch one, I'll see if I can get us there." I ordered as the shuttle finally stabilised.

I managed to avoid a lot of the shots the ship fired at us, thanks to the shuttle's small size compared to the larger, unidentified ship behind us. We'd almost made it to the planet when another shot hit the already damaged engine, which exploded. I could hear the shrapnel ping as it bounced off the side of the shuttle, luckily the hull hadn't breached but it also meant that this landing was going to hurt like hell.

I could only watch as flames licked up the front of the shuttle as we entered the atmosphere and began our descent, as we descended through the atmosphere I could make out what appeared to be a base of some sort below, however my attention was quickly turned to the rather large series of trees I was heading towards.

Before I could react the shuttle ploughed straight into them, the sound of branches snapping and metal buckling as the shuttle continued its descent. I was barely aware of Delta informing me that the starboard engine had also been sheared off when the shuttle hit the ground and bounced a few times before I was hurled forwards, my head hitting the console in front of me, then everything went dark.

The world returned to me in a blurry, pain filled mess. Blinking a few times, I pulled myself to a sitting position on the floor with a groan. I shut my eyes tight in an attempt to halt the spinning world around me. After a few times it worked, too bad I couldn't shake the pounding in my head or my left arm either.

Glancing down at it I winced at the odd angle it was at "Oh yeah that's broken." I muttered as I lifted my right arm to my temple, wincing when pain shot across my head, not really surprised when I pulled the hand back and saw blood on my fingers.

"Delta, you alright?" I asked as I glanced around the now ruined shuttle.

**I am fine. **The AI answered **The shuttle however is not.**

"I noticed." I muttered.

**Are you alright?**

"I've been better." I groaned as I reached up with my good arm and gingerly pulled myself to my feet "But we can't stay here, odds are whoever shot us down are on their way by now."

**I am detecting no life signs in the immediate area; however my sensors do have a limited range.**

"Well we'll just have to hope we don't run into anybody, and that somebody picked up our distress signal."

**What will we do in the meantime?**

"I saw a building as we made our decent; it was the only one in the area, that will probably be our best bet. Let's just hope if there are occupants that they aren't with the group that shot us down."

**And if they are?**

"Then we'll be a bit of trouble." I replied as I retrieved my stuff and Delta's chip and made my way out of the shuttle.

What I had failed to realised during the crash was that the trees I had been flying through was part of a…well it was either a forest or a jungle, it was hard to tell since trees were all I could see for the most part.

Deciding that cover was the best option I made way into a dense area of the trees and started heading off in the direction of the building I had seen, albeit it at a much slower pace than I would have preferred.

I'd been travelling about 10 minutes when I heard voices just ahead of me and took a few steps back and crouching down, hoping that the underbrush of trees and grass would keep me hidden.

"It's not that much father to the crash site." One male voice said, the tone of his voice was familiar but for the moment I could put my finger on why.

"Well let's just hope that the pilot survived." Another added in a similar sounding tone as the first. I watched as the trees moved slightly before three figures emerged. When I saw them I knew instantly why I recognised the tone of their voices, they were Batarians.

"You better hope they did, otherwise I'll sell both of you into slavery." The third Batarian snarled, clearly the leader of the trio.

I tried to suppress my fear as they walked past me, even though I was a good 15 or 20 paces away from them and watched them as they made their way towards the wreckage of my shuttle, before continuing on my journey when they were out of sight.

I don't know how long I had been travelling before the world started spinning again, but with those Batarians in the area I didn't want to stop and tried to push on. I only stopped once, to collect a few pieces of wood and vines to use as a makeshift splint for my arm.

However a few minutes later another wave of dizziness washed over me, causing me to stop and rest. Slumping down against a large rock I felt my eyelids getting heavy and try as I might I couldn't stop them from closing every few seconds. I heard the rustling of the underbrush and lifted my head slighting in time to see a blurry figure start to emerge from the treeline just ahead of me before I blacked out.

When I regained consciousness again I realised I wasn't in the forest anymore but in what looked to be makeshift medical bay. I slowly sat up to realise that my head didn't hurt anymore and that my arm was now in a sling, and not the splint it had been in. Apart from the bed I was sitting on, there was a table in the corner of the room and on the table was my guitar, the bag it was in and the rest of my stuff laid out as if someone had looked through it and not bothered to put it back. Everything seemed to be there with the exception of Delta's chip. A glint on the table drew my attention to my dog tags and picked them up and putting them on.

I heard the sound of a door open behind me and turned around expecting to see a Batarian but instead saw a human female looking at me. I pegged her to be about 25 years old, about 5'5 tall with a slight tan to her skin and blonde hair that was tied in a ponytail.

"Ah good your awake." She smiled.

"Yeah, I suppose I have you to thank for patching me up?" I replied.

"Yes, sorry about your arm but we don't have enough medi-gel or the equipment to fix it." She added with a soft smile.

"Well it's better than the splint I was using." I countered, causing her to chuckle.

"That is true."

"So…uh not that I'm not grateful or anything, but who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Lieutenant Kaitlin Reeves, Alliance Navy." She replied as another man entered the room.

He stood at about 6'5 with black hair, a stubbly beard and whose presence demanded respect, definitely military.

"I see our guest is awake." He said as he looked at me "Glad to see you're alright, you were pretty banged up."

"Yeah, I've got the Batarians to thank for that." I answered "They shot me down as I was travelling through the system."

The man nodded in understanding "I suspected that was the case. I'm Commander William Adley with the Alliance Navy."

"Nice to meet you Commander, I'm Robert Kincaid." I replied and watched as he raised an eyebrow, clearly he had seen my dog tags "It's a family name." I added with a grin, Adley nodded but remain silent which I'll admit made me a little nervous.

"So uh not to be rude or anything but I was wondering, I had a VI chip with me but I didn't see it with my stuff."

Adley motioned with his hand to follow him "Yes, since you were unconscious we hoped your VI would be able to help us identify you."

_Oh crap _I thought as I followed the Commander out of the room and through a set of double doors into an open room, with a large computer in the centre and several smaller computers along the walls. Judging by the looks of it, this was the command centre, which meant that it wasn't the large building I had seen on my way down.

Standing at the large computer was another man, in his mid-thirties. He had strawberry blonde hair and wore glasses with thin black rims and was busy typing away on a holographic keyboard.

"Lieutenant Wade this is Mr Robert Kincaid, as we suspected the Batarians shot him down." Adley said.

"Hello." Wade nodded with a quick glance up from the terminal.

"Nice to meet you." I replied

"Can you activate Mr Kincaid's VI for us." Adley ordered.

I watched as the Lieutenant typed a few commands on the keyboard and watched as the green flicker of Delta's holographic image flicked to life and looked over at me.

**Hello Robert.**

"Hey Delta, how you feeling?"

**My program is functioning normally, you have no new messages. The Commander requested your information; I hope you do not mind that I provided it.**

"That's fine Delta." I replied before turning to look at Commander Adley "So Commander, if you don't mind me asking, what brings the Alliance out here?"

The Batarians that shot you down are part of a slaver group operating in this system with a group of Mercenaries; my team are here to put a stop to it."

I nodded "And let me guess that large building I saw on my way in is their base of operations?"

"That's correct, the rest of my team are scouting out the area now. They were on their way there when they found you and brought you back here." Adley replied.

I nodded "So…I'm guessing there's no spaceport or anything around here then?"

Adley smiled "Afraid not, but don't worry once we finish our mission you can come with us. Where were you heading?"

"The Citadel and then maybe back to Earth, haven't decided yet."

Adley nodded "We'll be making a quick stop off at the Citadel before our next mission so that won't be a problem, although I noticed you don't have much in the way of belongs, was the rest of it on your shuttle?"

"Uh no, that's all I had when I left." I answered.

"That's it? No credits armour or guns?"

I thought for a moment, trying to think up a reasonable excuse "Uh no I uh I had a bit of a financial situation, got given some bad investment advice, the armour and guns were the last things I sold to get a bit of credit for food and a place to stay, the shuttle was the last thing I had…well that and my guitar."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Adley replied.

"Thanks." I replied, smiling to myself that he brought my lie.

Adley was about to say something when we heard gunfire coming from outside.

"What the hell…?" I heard the Commander mutter as he ran towards a door on the far end of the room, the two Lieutenants I had met following him.

"What's going on Delta?" I asked, once they had left the room.

**I am detecting several human life signs make their way towards this building, they are being pursued by 10 Batarians, I believe it is safe to assume that Commander Adley's recon team were discovered.**

"Crap." I cursed "Can we do anything?"

**I am afraid not, this building has no weapon turrets, or other defences against an attack.**

I cursed under my breath again "Well I can't just sit here and do nothing, do they have Extranet access here?"

**Yes, it is how I managed to provide the Commander with your information, when they activated me and I discovered the connection I accessed the Birth's and Death's database for the New York area on the Extranet and uploaded your personal data to it, now if anybody checks it will appear as though you have always existed in this universe.**

I couldn't help but smile at that "Thanks Delta but that wasn't why I was asking. Can you tell if the slavers have Extranet access in their building as well?"

**One moment…yes they do. I believe, given sufficient time I may be able to gain access to their systems and do something from there.**

I nodded "Okay see what you can do, I'm going to go and see if I can help Adley and his men." I replied as I jogged towards the door they had gone through.

I peeked through the door, to see a small room that lead to the exit, just outside I could see Adley and the two Lieutenants firing somewhere past what I could see. I quickly ran towards the outer door and peeked outside, to see that at least three more Alliance soldiers had taken cover with Adley, who I assumed were the recon team.

I glanced around but failed to see anything I could do to help them, especially since I didn't have any armour or weapons and a broken arm, going out there would be suicide. As I watched the battle continue, I saw that one of the Mercenaries with the Batarians was a Krogan who was charging straight at the group and he was huge!

With one large shoulder barge he sent the cover that one of the Alliance soldiers as well as the soldier himself flying through the air, over the heads of his comrades and right into the wall of the building with a heavy splat. I winced at the sound as the body hit the wall and then the floor, however with it came a sound of something else hitting the floor and glanced down to see that it was a pistol. I crouched down and picked it up and studied it, it looked a lot like the ones in the game but I couldn't tell the manufacturer, it was lighter than I had expected it to be though, despite it looks it felt about the same weight as a 9mm Beretta.

Glancing up I could see that the Krogan had turned his attention to the other members of the recon team, as they were slightly ahead of Adley and the other two and was firing at them with his shotgun.

I aimed down the sights and fired, cursing when my shot went wide due to the kickback that I hadn't expected. I lined up another shot and fired, again missing. I repeated the action several more times, each time adjusting for the kickback and preparing myself, while in my head saying that it was partly due to the fact I was only using one hand to fire it, although I was pretty certain that wasn't the case.

It must have been on my 6th shot that I managed to hit the Krogan in his hump and grinned, having finally managed to hit him. However my happiness was short lived when the Krogan turned too look at me and grinned, before pointing his shotgun in my direction.

"Aw hell…" I cursed as I dived back through the door, narrowly avoiding the spray of buckshot that flew over my head into the wall behind me. I looked up to see that the Krogan was still facing me and sat up, unloading a few rounds into the massive thing, each shot appearing to do little damage.

The Krogan just smiled as it aimed at me and fired just as I rolled to my left, taking cover behind the wall to the left of the door, all the while looking at the smouldering holes in the ground where I had been a few seconds ago.

At this point in time I can honestly say I had never been so scared in my entire life, but that didn't mean I was going to hide. I remained crouched and peeked round the door and opened fire on the Krogan, taking him by surprise since he had expected me to be standing up. Several shots tore into his stomach and a few more into his legs, but still the damn thing wasn't going down. My finger kept squeezing on the trigger as I fired shot after shot into it, but it kept advancing.

As my fear kept rising I kept shooting until I heard the familiar beeping sound as the pistol overheated. Time seemed to freeze as I glanced down at the pistol and then at the Krogan, who grinned at me and aimed his shotgun at me. I know I should have moved but that sight has locked up every joint in my body and I couldn't move.

This was it, I was going to die before I even had a chance to stop the Reapers and couldn't help that this wouldn't have happened if I had stayed in my own reality. I had literally thrown away and wasted my life. My vision seemed to focus on the Krogan's finger and watched as it began to squeeze on the trigger.

Then the Krogan yelled and arched his back, snapping me out of my thoughts and I realised that one of what I had been referring to as the recon soldiers fired into the Krogan's back with his shotgun. The Krogan yelled again as the soldier fired twice more, and then on the third dropped to the ground.

I sighed and let out the breath I hadn't even realised I had been holding before giving a nod of thanks to the soldier, who returned it before taking cover next to one of his buddies to help take out the rest of the attackers.

From my cover I saw that there were only four left, which became three when Adley took out one of them and watched as the other three turned around and ran, no doubt heading back to their base. Knowing that the battle was over I headed back inside and hopefully prevent the soldiers from discovering what Delta was doing.

"Delta the fights over, you better stop what you're doing." I said.

**I have already finished Robert; I managed to hack into the slaver's system. Their security is…woefully lacking.**

I couldn't help but chuckle "Well that's good, but how are we going to explain it to Adley and his group.

**It would appear as though Lieutenant Wade was attempting to do the same, when doing my attempt I made it appear as though it was his work that succeeded.**

"Nice work Delta." I whispered as Adley, Wade, Reeves and two others entered the room.

"Are you guys alright?" I asked.

"For the most part." Adley answered with a nod.

"We lost Munro." One of the new soldiers muttered "Damn Krogan."

"Munro was a good soldier, he'll be missed." Adley said before turning to look at me.

"I saw how you handled yourself with that Krogan kid, nice work. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't have reacted when you did."

"Well I couldn't just hide in here and do nothing Commander." I answered.

"Well we owe you one." Adley grinned.

"Well considering you saved me by bringing me here and patching me up how about we call it even?" I smiled back.

"Deal." Adley chucked. "Still you handled yourself well and you adapted to that pistol pretty quickly."

"My father taught me how to shoot when I was growing up, he was in the military." I answered.

"Well it would seem as though he taught you well."

"He did."

Our conversation was interrupted when Wade spoke up, having realised that they had access to the slaver's computer network.

"Commander my hack worked, we have access to their network. There are reports on their operation. Details on which slaves were sold to who, schedules of when more slaves are due to arrive and leave. We even have access to their security camera, we can do a lot of our internal recon from here."

Adley grinned from ear to ear "That's great news Wade, good job, we'll take a look and see what ideas we can come up with."

"Yes sir." Wade answered as he returned to the computer, no doubt looking to see what else Delta had managed to access.

My attention however was brought back to Adley when he said my name "Mr Kincaid, I know this might seem like a lot to ask considering everything but I'm a man down and from what I've seen I think you could handle yourself. Our mission would go a little easier if you could assist us."

I blinked in surprise "Uh well with all due respect Commander I would, but uh my arm isn't exactly in top form and I don't have any armour."

Adley smiled "We have some spare armour in the shuttle, as for your arm…" he paused as he seemed to consider something and called over Lieutenant Reeves.

"Reeves, if we used the last of our Medi-Gel would it be enough to fix Mr Kincaid's arm?"

I watched as Kaitlin thought on it a moment before nodding "I believe so sir, it wasn't a major break, although it would be a little sore."

Adley nodded and returned his attention to me "You don't have to do this if you don't want to; you are a civilian after all."

_Technically in this reality I am _I thought but nodded "I'll help anyway I can Commander."

Adley smiled "I had a feeling you would. Reeves, give Mr Kincaid the last of the Medi-Gel and take him to the shuttle, hopefully that armour we have in there will fit him."

"Yes sir." Kaitlin nodded before turning to me with a smile "Follow me."


	5. Chapter 5: Preparations

**Chapter 5: Preparations**

"There you go, how's that?" Kaitlin asked as I flexed the fingers in my left hand before moving it up, down and rotating it.

"It's a little sore but other than that, much better thanks." I smiled.

"Good, come on let's go and see if that armour fits."

With a nod I hopped off the bed and followed the Lieutenant out of the room.

"Thanks for the help back there; you didn't have to do that." Kaitlin said as we walked "It was risky with you not having any armour or anything."

I smiled "Risky? Most people would probably say stupid."

Kaitlin chuckled "True and they'd probably be right, still things probably would have been lot worse if you hadn't jumped in when you did, we probably would have lost more people than just Munro."

I nodded "I'm sorry about your friend."

"Thanks, he was a good man." Kaitlin replied sadly.

We made our way across the main control room and through a door to the east, which led to an Alliance Kodiak shuttle. It located in a closed off section of the building, which was probably why the slaver's hadn't disabled it. Kaitlin lead me to the side hatch and opened it before reaching in and pulling out a crate and opened it.

"Here you go its standard issue Onyx I light armour and a shield generator." Kaitlin said, as I lifted it out of the crate.

It looked exactly like the in game version did which surprised me considering the 7 year gap between now and the game time, guess armour design won't change much. The armour was completely black, with a matching helmet, from the looks of it, it seemed as though it would fit.

I slipped the lower armour and boots on first and then the upper armour, deciding to forego the helmet for a minute and was glad that it seemed to fit. Although despite being called 'Light Armour' it was heavier than I expected it to be and had to admit it took a bit of getting used to.

It wasn't heavy enough to make a guy fall over, but it was just enough to make moving about a bit difficult, it felt like I was carrying a few extra people on my shoulders, although after about an hour of moving around in it I had started to get the hang of it.

"Glad to see the armour fits." Adley said as I walked into the central chamber.

"Thanks." I replied "Takes a bit of getting used to though."

Adley chuckled "That it does." He replied as he walked over to me and glanced at my left arm "How's it feeling?" he asked.

"A little sore but I can fight." I replied.

"Good, good." Adley said "We've been reviewing the camera footage from the Batarian base and with the base layout Munro and Hendricks brought back, we've got a good chance of shutting this place down."

"Glad to hear it." I answered as I followed the Commander across the room, noticing that the others were already gearing up. "So we're heading out soon?"

"Yes, just checking a few more details." Adley answered as he looked over at me "You know we've got a few spare weapons if you want them."

I chuckled "Thanks but I've only ever fired pistols and something tells me we don't have time for a few lessons."

Adley laughed "Fair enough."

A few minutes later Adley gathered us for a briefing. "Okay everyone listen up, thanks to our access to the slaver's computer system we know the layout of the base, I'm uploading it to your Omni-Tools now so you can take a look."

I glanced around to see the rest of the group looking at the orange holographic computers and cursed that I didn't have one until I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced around to see Kaitlin smiling at me and held her arm up so I could take a look at hers and smiled "Thanks." I whispered.

"Jeez no armour, no weapons, no money and no Omni-Tool are you sure those aren't your Dog Tags you're wearing? It's like you've never lived in this time before." The young woman replied with a grin.

_If only you knew how right you are Lieutenant _I thought but managed to smile "No, like my arm mine was broken in the crash, didn't see the point of bringing it with me. Besides if these were my tags I'd be like 160 years old or something."

Kaitlin chuckled "Good point."

We both glanced down at her Omni-Tool as Adley continued his briefing and used his Omni-Tool to highlight different areas on the map; the synchronisation between the squad's Omni-Tools meaning the highlighted areas appeared on everyone else's too.

"This is the main chamber; it's the first place past the entrance."

A vid feed from the camera's showed a metal catwalk ran above the area with stairs on either side, each providing a clear view of the lower level. From what I could see from the footage, there were 2 Batarians patrolling either side of the catwalk each. One of the two sentries patrolled the catwalk covering from the entrance to the middle of the catwalk and the other from the middle to the opposite end of catwalk and meeting.

"As you can see there are three corridors leading off from the main chamber." Adley continued "The first one near the entrance on the east side leads to a dormitory, the corridor to the west leads to the holding cells, where there are currently several slaves being held."

Another vid feed popped up to show several Humans, two Turians, an Asari and a Quarian being held in cages, no doubt the next beings up for auction or waiting to be shipped off to their new owners, the thought sickened me.

"The rest of the rooms down here are more holding cells, luckily however they are all empty, although it could be a fall-back position for the Batarians if things go wrong, especially if they make it to the captives first. The door to the south, at the other end of the main chamber leads to the rear exit. There are 15 Batarians and 3 Krogan inside." Adley finished before tapping away at his Omni-Tool and bringing up an external map of the building.

"The outside of the building can actually work to our advantage, the area surrounding the entrance is woodland, which will give us a lot of cover on our approach, however we will have to be careful. Judging by the footage there are at least 7 Batarians patrolling the grounds, two of which are Snipers on the roof." Adley finished "Comments?"

"Well the Snipers will need to be our first priority obviously." One of the recon marines spoke. It was then I realised that he was the one who had shot that Krogan who had almost killed me in the back, although I didn't know his name.

"Agreed." Adley nodded "As the two people with Sniper training here if we can time it right we should be able to take out both of them, leaving the other five."

I continued watching the footage being played on the Omni-Tool, my own military training kicking in as I studied the patrol route and layout. The other four each patrolled one side of the building and smiled as I felt a plan formulating in my head.

"Commander." I said, drawing the attention of the group "If you two can take out the snipers on the roof, the other four each patrol one side of the building, we might be able to take the down quietly without alerting any one inside."

Adley smiled "That was my thinking as well."

I nodded.

Adley returned his focus to the group "After we deal with the external group we'll gather at the east entrance and breach the building using some smoke grenades to provide cover…"

Before he could continue I raised my left arm, grunting when a slight pain shot through it "Uh Commander if I may?"

Adley turned his attention back to me "Yes?"

"Well if you don't mind me saying so sir, if you watch the footage from inside the building, not only are there several Batarians and a Krogan in the main room but there are four on the upper catwalk providing fire, if we all go in the front door odds are we'll suffer more than they will, even with smoke grenades."

Adley gave me a look that a cross between anger and curiosity, most likely because I was a civilian questioning his tactics but also, if I were to guess wondering how I could possibly know much about military tactics as I did, and for a moment regretted opening my mouth.

"Do you have a better idea Mr Kincaid?" he asked.

I decided to put on a little nervous act in the hope of throwing him off "Uh well…it looks like the four on the upper catwalk stick to the same pattern, if you watch they meet up in the middle on either side at the same time and arrive at the ends at the same time." I paused "If they still do that by the time we get there then if we have two people at the entrance and two at the exit on the other end, if we time it right maybe four of us could take those at the same time and eliminate their advantage while our 5th person uses some grenades or something to distract those on the ground level."

Adley stared at me for a long moment before he spoke "That's a pretty good strategy Mr Kincaid."

I shrugged "My father told me of a mission he went on once where his team encountered a similar situation, I figure if it worked for him and his men it could work for us, but you're in charge commander, I'll follow you."

Adley frowned at me as if he was analysing my lie before nodding "The timing would have to be perfect. I suppose we could snipe two of them, but what about the other two…"

This time it was Kaitlin who spoke up "I should be able to take them out with my Biotics sir, or at least immobilise them for a few moments."

Adley grinned "OK then that leaves Wade and Kincaid on cover duty. Wade you can use your tech skills and the grenades to deal with the lower level guards, Kincaid you cover Reeves while she uses her Biotics."

I nodded along with Wade as we were given our orders.

"Okay once we clear the main room, we'll head for the captives; hopefully we'll be able to get there before any of the other slavers make it there and use them as human shields. If we can get there first then we can barricade the other entrances into the room and funnel the rest of them through one entrance and make it easy to mow them down, after which we can get them back to the shuttle and get off this planet."

It certainly sounded like a good plan, as long as everything played out that way. The rest of Adley group supported it, hell I did as well. But having said that you never know what way a fight is going to turn out, after all the best laid plans can go to hell with just the slightest hiccup and considering the fact we were already outnumbered and out gunned the odds weren't in our favour going into this encounter in the first place and was if everything did go to plan, if things took a turn for the worse than those odds would drop drastically.

Personally I hoped the mission went well, not just for our sakes but for the sakes of the captured individuals, their freedom depended on us pulling it off. Not even on my third day in this universe and I'm already in the middle of a conflict with high stakes, I hoped this wouldn't be an indication of what was going to come over the next 7 years, considering what I knew I would be facing then.


	6. Chapter 6: Liberation

**Whew that was one long chapter to write but a fun one, I hope you guys enjoy it.**

**Chapter Six: Liberation**

We were hiding in the treeline on the edge of the slaver compound, doing some final recon before our assault.

"Alright let's see what we've got here…" Adley muttered as he looked through the scope of his sniper rifle. "We've got 2 snipers on the roof, Cordell and I can take them out." The Commander added, with a nod to the other sniper. "And the other four are still on a standard patrol, one on each side of the building, three Batarians and a Krogan; we'll save him for last."

The three of us nodded in agreement knowing that dropping the Krogan would take some effort. I watched as Wade brought up his Omni-tool and accessed the internal system. "Everything looks good Commander; we've got four Batarians on the upper catwalk and five on the ground floor, at least for now."

Adley nodded "Okay we'll check once more before we breach, just to be safe, let's deal with the outside first, starting with those snipers."

Adley and Cordell setup their rifles for their shots before exchanging a glance "One three." Adley said before glancing down his scope, Cordell doing the same "One…Two…Three." I watched as simultaneously the two marines fired and the two Batarian snipers dropped in silence.

"Okay Cordell and Kincaid stay here while Reeves, Wade and I will manoeuvre into position to take out three of the patrolling the North, East and South sides, then we'll deal with the Krogan." Adley ordered before the trio moved off.

"Hey, I never got to thank you for saving my ass from that Krogan earlier." I said.

"No problem, besides you saved us first so I guess we're even." Cordell replied with a grin as he scanned the area with his scope before turning to look at me and frowning "You only have a pistol?"

"Yeah. I never got around to handling an assault rifle or anything, sort of regretting that now." I muttered.

"Here." Cordell said as he pulled a knife out of a holster strapped to his boot "Just in case."

"Thanks." I replied as the sniper glanced through his scope again "Adley just took out his target."

I nodded "One down, three to go."

A few minutes later Cordell announced that Kaitlin had taken out her guard too, that just left Wade and his guy who after a few minutes announced over the radio that he was done too.

"That just leaves the Krogan…" Cordell said "This won't be easy."

"Yeah, and there's at least one more inside." I added.

"Don't remind me." Cordell muttered as we watched the others start making their way back towards us through the treeline. The trio had made it halfway back when I glanced back towards the building and realised something was off.

"Where's the Krogan?" I asked when I realised that the side of the building the Krogan had been covering was now empty.

"Crap he must have spotted one of the bodies." Cordell cursed as he scanned the area with his rifle. Adley and the others just regrouped with us when an alarm started blaring from inside the building.

"So much for the element of surprise." Wade muttered.

"Alright everybody, bunker down here for the moment and stay out of sight, let's see what we're dealing with and how they react." Adley ordered as we all laid down, hoping the grass and trees we were using would provide enough cover to hide us.

Adley and Cordell were looking down the scopes of their sniper rifles as the slavers started exiting the building one by one and fanning out in a search pattern.

"What are we going to do sir?" Kaitlin whispered.

Adley remained silent as he considered his options. "We could distract them." he whispered "Lure them into a trap. If we fall back a bit and spread out we can catch them in crossfire."

"Shouldn't be too hard, there are only 10 of them." Cordell said.

"Makes sense that they'd leave a few behind inside to guard the captives." Wade added.

"So the only question is who will be the runner?" Kaitlin asked.

"I'll do it." I said.

Adley turned to look at me "You sure about this Kincaid?"

I nodded "Well it makes sense, Lieutenant Reeves is a Biotic, she's better suited to be part of the ambush team, Wade's a Tech, Cordell has a sniper rifle and you have all four. I'm the only one here who would deal the least amount of damage, so I can lure them in first and then join in once the trap is set."

It only took a few seconds for Adley to consider it before nodding "Alright then, let's fall back and get ready."

_Why on earth did I volunteer for this_ I thought to myself as I observed the 10 aliens across the way from me. The good news was that they were all Batarians; the bad news was that there were at least two Krogan inside the building that we would have to deal with.

The bad news was that all of those Batarians had what looked from this distance to be Avenger assault rifles while all I had was a pistol and a knife, those were very bad odds indeed. Still given what I knew about Batarians getting them to chase me would be the easiest thing I'd probably ever have to do here.

The radio in my helmet crackled as the channel was open "Kincaid its Adley, we're ready, let's spring this trap."

"Understood." I replied as I crept forward, towards the edge of the underbrush I was hiding in. I paused and took a breath before standing up and walking casually out of my hiding place.

"Hey Batarians!" I yelled causing all 10 of them to turn and face me "We come out here, attack your base, kill 6 of your guys and all you do is come out here and patrol instead of hunting us down? It's no wonder we kicked your pathetic, cowardly asses out of the Verge."

One of the Batarians yelled and pointed at me "KILL HIM!"

With a chuckle I spun on my heel and ran back into the underbrush as shots whizzed past me, although I felt some of them impact my armour's shields.

"This is Kincaid; I'm bringing them towards you." I said into the open radio channel, taking a moment to glance down at my HUD, not surprised to see that there were ten red blips chasing me. I jolted as another few shots hit my shields and saw the shield indicator on my HUD lose a bar.

I wasn't far from our trap and started sprinting faster, however I wasn't yet used to running with this armour on, which definitely drove the air out of me that much quicker. A few more shots impacted my shields as I noticed my speed had started to slow as I ran out of breath and cursed as the shield bar dropped to one bar and kept falling as more shot hit it.

I glanced over my shoulder to see three Batarians right behind me and cursed as I pulled out my pistol and fired at them, cursing again as my shots went a little wide. I glanced forward to see that the path was clear before turning back again and firing, a small grin spreading on my face when one shot hit a Batarian in his arm, slowing him down and another got the second in the knee, dropping him to the ground. The third however had managed to avoid my shots and fired back.

The first burst from his assault rifle missed me, however the second did and depleted what was left of my shields before the third impacted my armour and I could help but wince with every ping I heard as the armour too shot after shot.

Knowing that I didn't have any shields I took one last round of quick firing before turning forward and sprinting as hard as I could in an attempt to increase the distance between myself and my pursuers. I don't how I missed the tree root in the ground, but the next thing I knew I was flying through the air before landing face first on the ground with a groan.

I rolled over only to be met with two assault rifles aimed at my face. My eyes looked up the barrels to be met with eight eyes looking down at me, which was one hell of a creepy sight.

"What? No more comments from the arrogant human?" One of them snarled as the other planted his foot on my chest with a heavy stomp, driving what little air my lungs had left out of them.

"We're not so cowardly now are we?" the other one added as I coughed and tried to draw in some much needed oxygen, a task made difficult with the Batarian's foot pressing down on me.

"No." I grunted "But you're still pathetic." I added with a chuckle, earning myself a solid kick in my ribs fully expecting to get shot and glanced up at the two Batarians in time to see both of them get shot in the head and dropping.

Without a moment's hesitation I rolled to my right and kept going until I made it behind a tree and sat up, resting my back against it and took several long gasps of air, broken only by several coughing fits.

Gunfire echoed around me to the point it was deafening and it was then I realised that I had actually fell over right in the middle of our trap, but that the two Batarian's that were chasing me were ahead of the pack, but now the others had caught up.

After several moments I'd caught enough breath to stand up and was relieved to see that my shields had also recharged. I took a few steps forwards and retrieved my pistol before joining the fight, although by the time I had there were only 3 Batarians left, two of which were taken down by sniper fire as the third was encapsulated in a blue hue seconds before he was sent flying back several feet into a nearby tree with a loud crack and dropped to the ground.

A few moments later the rest of the team arrived from their hiding places and joined me.

"You okay Kincaid?" Adley asked as I hunched over and coughed again, still slightly winded.

"I'm good." I muttered as I stood straight again "Don't think anything is broken."

"Glad to hear it and good job luring them out here." Adley replied with a grin "Although I don't think mouthing off to those two when they had rifles to your head was the smartest move."

I shrugged "Anger makes you do stupid things, I figured insulting them would make them kick my ass a while longer and bide you guys time to get here." I answered "I didn't realise I was actually in the middle of our trap until after you'd killed those two. Thanks for that by the way."

"Well that's phase two of our plan complete." Adley said as we slowly made our way back, although I did take some time to loot some of the bodies and got myself a better pistol and a stronger shield generator, which Cordell gracefully showed me how to install.

It didn't take long for us to make it back to the edge of the slaver base and waited as Wade accessed their system through is Omni-tool to give us the lay of the land.

"Well the good news is that there are only six of them left." The Lieutenant said. "The bad news is that there have fortified themselves in the room with the captives and have done what we were going to do and barricaded two of the entrances. Add to that two of them are Krogan."

"Well that's just perfect." Cordell muttered.

"This isn't going to be easy Commander." Kaitlin added.

"I'd have to agree sir." Wade said.

"Is there any way we could unblock one of those barricaded entrances?" Adley asked.

"I'm not sure sir but from here it doesn't look like it." Wade answered.

"Do we have night vision?" I asked as I remembered something I had seen on the footage earlier.

"Yes, all Alliance armour helmets contain an option on the HUD, why do you ask?" Adley began and smiled.

"Can we bring up the room again?" I asked and glanced at Wade's Omni-tool when the feed popped up. Sure enough the four Batarian's and two Krogan were spread out around the room, with the captives strategically placed in the middle of the room, stuck in the middle of any crossfire should a fire fight break out in there.

"There are no windows in that room, if we can kill the lights, it might give up a slight tactical advantage." I added.

Wade started typing away on the holographic computer and smiled a few minutes later "Yeah I can do it but for it to work perfectly we'll have to get outside the door without being detected."

"That shouldn't be too hard considering there are no guards; all we'd need to do is loop the external camera's just in case they are monitoring them." Adley said.

"I've already set them on a loop sir, as far as their concerned they won't see a thing." Wade replied.

"Well okay then, move out everyone." Adley replied.

The five of us started making our way across the open area between the treeline and the building, each of us a few paces apart so that we couldn't all be taken out with one grenade. Lieutenant Wade was on the left flank with Kaitlin a little way to his right with Adley in the middle, then Cordell and finally me on the right flank, each of us scanning the area with our eyes just in case.

Everything had been going well until I heard a quiet zip whizz past me to the left and turned in time to see Cordell go down.

"SNIPER!" I yelled as I ran over and grabbed Cordell and lifted him up into a fireman's carry and sprinting towards the building, seeing the others running towards the building as well. When we were close enough to the building to be protected from the sniper's fire I put Cordell and pulled off his helmet, cursing when I saw blood pouring out of his neck.

"Hey hang on Cordell; you're going to be fine." I said as I pressed against the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding, although I knew it probably wasn't going to work, I heard movement to my left and turned to see the rest of the team running towards us.

"How is he?" Adley asked.

"He took a round to the next, I don't think it got the artery but it's more than a flesh wound." I answered, already seeing the blood trickling over my armoured hand.

Kaitlin crouched down to my right and pulled it back to check the wound. "Well your right about it not getting the artery but there's still a chance he could bleed out; if we had some Medi-gel it might be enough to stop the bleeding."

"They probably have some in there." I said, nodding into the building.

"Probably but someone will need to stay with him." Kaitlin replied.

"I will." Wade said as he moved over "I'm a Tech, you don't really need me for this, I can keep pressure on the wound and keep guard."

"What if we need your Tech skills?" Adley asked.

"I'll stay with him." I said "That way you'll have all your weapons, some Tech powers and a Biotic, the only thing I can bring is a pistol, besides you'll need Wade to kill the lights. If the map was right there's a small medical bay down the left corridor, third door on the right." I added as I recalled the map of the building I'd seen earlier.

"You sure about that?" Adley asked.

"Yes Commander." I replied.

"Alright then, that's where we'll head to first." Adley replied "If these slavers are smart they'll use the captives as human shields which should buy us some time to save them."

Before we could reply a gunshot landed just left of Adley, leaving scorch marks in the ground. In an instant Adley turned and opened fire on a Batarian, killing him instantly.

"Go!" Adley ordered as Kaitlin and Wade took up positions on either side and entered the building, leaving me alone with Cordell, whose eyes slowly opened for what I assumed was the first time since he'd been shot.

He tried to open his mouth to speak but I held up a hand "Try not to speak, there was a sniper, you took around to the neck." I began and explained the situation to him "The others have gone to get some Medi-gel for you but you need to hang on okay?"

Cordell blinked and tilted his head slightly in a nod as I kept pressure on the wound, trying not to focus on the fact that more of the man's blood was covering my gloved hand. I was so focussed on trying to keep Cordell focussed and alive that I almost missed the red blip that appeared on my HUD's radar and realised that it was almost right on top of us.

I pulled my pistol off of its mag-lock spot on my armour and peeked around the corner, expecting to see the hostile but frowned when nobody was there. I looked to my left only to see that there was nobody there either and yet the red blip was still on the radar at our exact position, which was odd.

Then it hit me that maybe whoever it was could be literally above us on the roof, our mysterious sniper, which left me with a choice, either go around the corner and see if I could spot him and maybe shoot him in the back, or stay with Cordell and hope that the Sniper stayed on the roof.

"Go." Cordell whispered in a gravelly voice, causing me to look down at him "I'll…be…fine." He added.

I glanced up and then at Cordell debating with myself over what to do before cursing under my breath and lifting his left hand and pressing it against his wound "Keep pressure on this, I'll be right back."

Cordell managed another slight nod as I slowly crept around the corner and along the wall of the building. Glancing at my HUD I could see that the blip had not moved and took a few steps back, just making out the back of a Batarian's head. The only problem was I wasn't sure if I could make the shot from here, which would leave me in a bad situation. Instead I kept going along the side of the building until I reached the end and peeked around the corner, smiling when there were no hostiles there and a set of metal stairs leading up to the roof.

I quietly crouch-walked over to the stairs and up them, doing my best not to make any noise until I neared the top and peeked over the top of the wall. The good news was that the sniper was still looking out, no doubt assuming that he had killed the one he had shot and that the rest of us were inside. The bad news however was there wasn't any cover on the roof between me and him and it was a long distance to cover.

Knowing I had very little choice I made my way onto the roof and started slowly making my way towards the Batarian, silently hoping that he wouldn't turn around, if he didn't all I had to do was get there and take him down silently. I'd made it a little over two thirds of the way there when the Batarian turned around and time seemed to slow down as the Batarian clearly hadn't been expecting to see me up here and for me a brief 'deer-caught-in-the-headlights' moment although it only lasted a second as the Batarian started to raise his rifle at me.

Without giving it a second thought I charged towards him and lowered my head as I reached him, going for shoulder tackle before remembering exactly where we were and cursed as we both flew off the roof. I quickly lifted my head and braced myself as we both hit the floor, luckily with the Batarian hitting the ground first and cushioning my fall a little, although judging by the amount of pain that washed over me it wasn't much of an effect.

After taking a moment to try and blot out the pain I rolled off the Batarian and raised my head slightly to look at him, wincing when I saw the large pool of blood pooling around his head. With another groan I slowly sat up, ignoring the protesting of my aching body and staggered back over to Cordell, curing when I realised he had passed out again and quickly put pressure back on the wound and cursed when I noticed how shallow his breathing had become.

It was only a few minutes later when I heard gunfire coming from within the building and cursed again as I glanced towards the entrance and then at Cordell "Damn it." I cursed as I found myself yet again torn between leaving a man who was dying but had saved my life twice today and leaving him to go help the others.

"Kincaid it's Adler." The Commander's voice came through my radio.

"Go ahead Commander."

"We've got the Medi-gel and managed to take out two of the hostiles but were pinned down by the two Krogan and the last Batarian, how's Cordell?"

"He's passed out sir and his breathing is shallow, I don't think he's going last much longer."

"The only way to save him is for you to leave him there and try to help us." Adler replied.

I knew he was right but it just felt wrong leaving Cordell here "I'm on my way." I said as I stood up, suppressing another groan as I slowly made my way inside and towards the sound of gunfire. My entire body seemed to protest any movement as I made my way do the corridor to the point I realised I'd been leaning against the wall my entire way, until I spotted the bad guys crouched behind an overturned table, firing into the medical room.

I raised my pistol and looked down the iron sights hoping that my body would ignore its pain enough for me to pull of an accurate shot as I lined up with the back of the Batarian's exposed head. Taking a deep breath I gently squeezed on the trigger and braced for the slight kickback as the shot left the barrel.

Luckily my aim spot on as the Batarian slumped over dead, unluckily for me however this drew the attention of the two Krogan. "Aw hell." I cursed when they spotted me and turned their shotguns my direction.

The distraction however was enough for the others to start shooting back at them as a Biotic throw send one of the Krogan flying across the room and into the wall, although it only seemed to stun the brute, but at least it was out of the game for now.

I turned my attention back to the other Krogan and started shooting at its back while the others shot at it from inside the room. Thanks to Krogan regeneration it took several minutes of sustained fire before the Krogan finally fell and I watched as Adler and Kaitlin emerged from the room.

"Are you alright?" Kaitlin gasped when she saw me, causing me to realise that I was now leaning most of my weight against the wall.

"I've been better." I muttered before I noticed something "Where's Wade?"

"He didn't make it." Adler replied with sadness in his voice "Where's the other Krogan?"

"He's over there…" I answered and pointed to where the Krogan was and cursed when the spot was empty.

"Oh oh." I muttered before I heard a noise behind me and turned in time to see the Krogan turn the corner and charge towards me.

I managed to duck and roll out of the way, avoiding it by a matter of inches if that as I heard gunfire from behind me and turned around in time to see the Krogan hit Adler and send him flying across the room into another wall before being enveloped in a Biotic field by Kaitlin, who ran over and helped Adler to his feet.

"That stasis field won't hold long." Kaitlin said as she made her way over to me.

I nodded as the three of us slowly made our way towards the exit with Kaitlin supporting Adler as I covered us. We'd made it into the large opening area when the Krogan rounded the corner and snarled.

"Here he comes!" I yelled as I opened fire, aiming mostly at the Krogan's legs in an attempt to slow him down, which worked to some extent even though I didn't manage to drop him this time. He was at least far enough behind us to give us some breathing room before he disappeared through the first door in the corridor, which I knew would lead him to the corridor on the other side of the building we had seen earlier.

But luck seemed to be on our side as we made it to the entrance before the Krogan had made it to the other corridor. We took a left and made our way over to Cordell as Kaitlin placed the still dazed Adler next to him before checking on Cordell.

"How is he?" I asked, watching as Kaitlin's shoulders slumped.

"He's gone." She whispered.

"Damn it." I cursed as I hung my head, knowing that if I hadn't of gone after that sniper on the roof that I might have been able to keep him alive. I was brought out of my thought when I heard the Krogan yell.

"Humans don't cower in fear; face your death with some dignity. I promise I'll make it quick for you."

With a slight snarl of my own I made my way over to Adler and pulled him forward slightly. "What are you doing?" Kaitlin whispered as I pulled Adler's shogun away from its place on his lower back.

"He won't give up and right now you're the only one who can actually run and get out of here if you wanted to." I replied.

"But I thought you said you'd never used a shotgun before?"

"I just have to ballpark the accuracy." I shrugged as I made my way towards the entrance and peeking around the corner in time to see the Krogan standing in the middle of the room waiting.

I slowly made my way to the middle of the entrance way, with my pistol on my left hip and the shotgun hanging loosely in my right hand as we stood off against each other, like two cowboys about to start a duel.

"Ha! You are the one that will fight me, where is the female? You can barely stand." The Krogan laughed.

I just smiled and nodded in his direction "And yet I still managed to put a few holes into you didn't I?"

The Krogan growled "It is no matter I will kill her just as easily as I will kill you."

I watched as the Krogan started charging at me and cursed when I realised it must have taken him as long as it had was that he took a few minutes out to regenerate because he was on me almost immediately. I raised the shotgun and fired, watching as only two of my shots hit the Krogan. I kept squeezing the trigger as the Krogan continued his charge until the shotgun overheated.

I dropped it and switched to the pistol, hoping to deal as much damage as I could before the Krogan reached me and rolled to my left just before he hit me and couldn't help but smile when Kaitlin hit him with a Biotic throw which sent him flying a little bit away from us.

I stood up and retrieved the shogun as the Krogan stood up and took a few shots at me, causing me to back pedal and find cover, thankful that my shields held out as I took cover behind the door entrance as Kaitlin threw another Stasis field on him and joined me in the building, taking the left side.

"Any ideas?" she asked.

"You keep hitting him with Biotics and I'll wear him down with the guns, he'll have to drop eventually."

Kaitlin nodded "Sounds like a plan."

I made my way out into the open and raised the shotgun, watching as the Krogan eyeballed me through the stasis field. Everything seemed to stop as I waited for the Stasis effect to end; it almost felt like that scene in Star Wars Episode 1 where Obi-Wan rushes through that red barrier field thing and has to wait watching Qui-Gon fought Darth Maul.

I saw the effect flicker and chose that moment to open fire, this time none of my shots missed, although I cursed at the kickback from the gun as the Krogan fired at me, the shot dropping the four shield bars on my HUD down to two, before Kaitlin hit him with what looked to be a Warp field.

The Krogan yelled and turned his attention to Kaitlin, firing a blast in her direction and forcing her to take cover behind the doorway before he returned his attention to me. I ran to my left and fired several times at my opponent but only managing a few minor grazes with the shotgun, apparently that Prothean knowledge on the weapons of this time the beacon had given me had told me how to maintain them and everything but not how to actually use them effectively, which sucked.

A quick glance at my HUD told me that one of my shield bars had recharged, however a shotgun blast from the Krogan quickly dropped that to one bar before he charged at me, his large frame colliding with mine and sent me flying back a good several feet across the courtyard, landing with a thud and a rather loud crack from my midsection.

"Ow." I grunted, followed by a few choice curse words, hearing the Krogan chuckle as he made his way over towards me. The pain was so intense that my body had instinctually curled itself into a ball in an attempt to shield itself from what I knew was at least one broken rib.

To make matters worse I'd lost the grip on the shotgun during my flight and was out of my reach and my pistol was about the same distance away in the other direction and the Krogan was almost on me, at least he had been until another Biotic throw from Kaitlin sent him a few paces away from me.

Trying my best to shrug off as much pain as I could I glanced around and saw the dead Batarian sniper a few paces away from me and whose rifle luckily had landed close by. With one hand pressing against my ribs I started to crawl my way towards it while Kaitlin distracted the Krogan. I'd almost made it when I heard what sounded like an explosion and turned in time to see the remain of what I knew was a Carnage shot hit the building where Kaitlin had been taking cover and heard the Krogan laugh out loud before turning his attention back to me.

I crawled as fast as I could towards the rifle and was within fingertips reach of it when I felt something grab my leg and pull me back, before another grabbed me by the waist and pulled me up.

"Argh!" I yelled as Krogan's hand that had been on my leg shifted to over my ribs before the one on my waist moved to around my throat as it lifted me high into the air with one hand, it's three fingers tightening around my throat, causing me to gurgle and gasp for breath as my feet kicked in an attempt to break free.

"You are strong Human, a worthy adversary." The Krogan said "It's almost a shame that you have to die, but at least you will have an honourable death."

I tried to pull against his grip but it was no use, the pain in my body combined with the lack of oxygen was zapping all my strength before my arms went almost limp at my sides. I could see blackness starting to seem into my vision and blinked in an attempted to force it way.

While I could hear myself gasping for breath I willed my left arm up and started punching the Krogan's face although it did very little good in terms of dealing damage.

"Any last words Human?" The Krogan asked me.

"Yeah." I gasped with a small smile as I felt the fingers of my right hand wrap around the handle of Cordell's knife "You've got…something…in your….eye." I panted as I unsheathed the knife and stabbed it into the Krogan's right eye.

The Krogan screamed in agony and immediately dropped me as he clutched at the knife as I hit the floor. Coughing, spluttering and gasping for breath I started crawling towards the abandoned sniper rifle and tried to ignore all the pain I was feeling. It didn't take long for me to reach the rifle again and felt my fingers curl around the barrel as I pulled it towards me, still hearing the Krogan screaming behind me.

Once I had a firm grip on it I turned it around and took a firm grip on its handle and rolled over onto my back, hoping that at point blank range I wouldn't miss as I aimed the rifle at the Krogan's head and winced when I watched him pull the knife out of his eye.

Even though the eye wasn't on the end of the knife judging by what I saw when the Krogan turned back to look at me it was clear that it was never going to be used again.

Even through the pain though the Krogan snarled and smiled at me as it pulled the shogun off of his back and started raising it towards me, it was now or never.

I looked through the scope and fired…the kickback sending my arms into the air and taking my shot with it. I cursed and could only watch as the Krogan's shotgun levelled square at my head and even with one eye he and I both knew he wasn't going to miss, ad yet he didn't shoot, instead he closed the distance and pressed the barrel right against my forehead and smiled.

This was it, I hadn't even managed to survive three days and I'd already failed. I closed my eyes and heard a shot…and yet I wasn't dead, then again maybe I was. But then I head a second shot, then a third, fourth and fifth and opened my eyes to see the Krogan stagger as he turned around to face whoever was shooting at him.

I was in so much pain and had so little energy left that it took all my strength to look up and see Kaitlin standing a few feet away shooting the Krogan with her pistol. I watched as the Krogan started raising his shotgun again only this time in Kaitlin's direction and willed myself to sit up and reach out, just managing to grab the barrel of it before it was out of my reach.

The Krogan glanced down at me, before taking a pistol round to the side of the head, at which point I felt his grip on the gun loosen before it fell out of his hand and to the floor, since I barely had much of a grip on it either.

I watched as the Krogan dropped to his knees before falling forwards and landing next to him, his eyes holding a vacant stare in my direction as the final breath left his body. I sat there in shock, unable to move as I looked at his lifeless remains.

I felt hand grab the side of my face and turn my gaze away from the Krogan, and found myself staring at Kaitlin who was saying something to me, but even though I could see her lips move I couldn't hear any of the words. I blinked several times in an attempt to focus but every time I did it just got harder and harder to open them again until final after one last attempt my eyes closed and didn't open again.


	7. Chapter 7: An Unexpected Encounter

**Hi everyone thanks for all the reviews and favourites/follows for this story, glad you all seem to be enjoying it as much as I am writing it.**

**Chapter Seven: An Unexpected Encounter**

_Smoke filled the sky for as far as the eye could see as the fires burned throughout the city. Both the smoke and the red hued sky it filled, occasionally being broken up by streaks of weapons fire, some red, some green. The sounds of gunfire and screaming echoed through the streets as the battle continued._

_Men and women ran through the streets seeking shelter from the pursuing Husks as the civilisations military forces struggled to hold them back and protect the innocents. Like the Quarians, Turians and various other races, this race also had three fingers and two toes. Their heads were covered in what appeared to be thick, layered carapaces and they had four eyes, two on each side of their heads with two irises each._

_The Protheans were putting up a valiant effort but the Reaper forces were just too great, especially with those giant lasers the Reapers had that carved through everything that got in its way. The Protheans were being killed off quicker than anybody would have been able to count; this looked less like a war and more of a massacre._

_A horde of Husks rounded a corner and charged towards a Prothean barricade, with the Protheans firing back with everything they had and for a brief moment it looked as though they were going to win this assault, but then the Reaper arrived. The large machine landed almost on top of the group, its front opening as the large red tip of its laser charged and fired…_

Ibolt upright gasping for breath as the images flashed through my brain before I collapsed back on the bed with my eyes closed for a moment trying to focus on slowing my breathing and calming myself. After a few moments I realised I could hear a soft beeping sound and opened my eyes again and glanced around the room.

The beeping was coming from a machine to my left, one that even this time I recognised as a heart rate monitor. As I glanced down at my body I winced at the bruises I seemed to be covered in. Clearly it would seem that I was in a hospital room judging not just by the machinery but also by the tediously dull white paint job of the room.

I shook my head as I tried to clear the remnants of the Prothean vision from my mind and silently hoped that I wouldn't be seeing it too often and that Shepard and I could stop it, assuming that Shepard actually existed in this universe. Although if I was being honest, having seen what devastation the Reapers had caused in that vision I didn't know if there was anything I could do to stop it, nothing was jumping out at me anyway.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the sound of a door to my left opening and turned my attention towards it, watching as a nurse walked in. She had long black hair and emerald green eyes that held a kindness in them.

"Ah your awake, how are you feeling Mr Kincaid?" she asked with a smile.

I took a moment to shift my body and pull myself into a seated position on the bed "A little sore but better than the last time I remember being awake."

The nurse chuckled "I'm glad to hear it, you took quite a beating back there."

"I remember." I muttered as I glanced around the room again "So uh where am I?"

The nurse smiled again "You're in the Juniper Hospital on The Citadel, the Alliance team you were with brought you here."

I nodded and was about to ask how they were when the door opened again and Kaitlin walked in and smiled "I was wondering when you were going to wake up." She said as the nurse looked over the readouts the machine was displaying about me before leaving.

"How are you feeling?" Kaitlin asked as she took a seat next to the bed.

"Better thanks, although this isn't exactly how I thought my first visit to the Citadel was going to go." I replied.

"I can imagine. You did good back there by the way."

I chuckled "Well it's not that hard getting your ass kicked by a Krogan, besides you're the one who finally killed him. Thanks for that."

Kaitlin smiled "Thanks for the distraction, but your welcome."

"So how's Adley?" I asked.

"He's got a minor concussion but other than that he's fine, already up and about. You should know that since you participated in an Alliance operation that you'll have to give a statement." Kaitlin answered.

"I figured as much."

A brief silence fell over the room before I spoke up again "How are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm okay I guess, I just wish we hadn't lost anybody on that mission." Kaitlin replied with a sombre tone to her voice.

"Yeah, but at least we rescued those captured civilians and saved them from a life of slavery. I know it won't make up for their deaths but at least they died doing some good, that's got to be worth something." I replied.

Kaitlin nodded with a small smile "Yeah it is." We continued talking for about an hour before she had to head off to do other things.

The nurse from earlier had popped in a short while after that to check up on me again and told me that my possessions were being stored in the locker by the far wall, but since I was still hooked up to a few machines couldn't get to them.

The following morning I was taken off of the machine and was told I would be able to leave the following day. True to her word all my things were in the locker and it was nice to be out of the hospital gown and back in proper clothes again and it was good speaking to Delta again, especially about the Prothean vision I had had the day before.

Kaitlin had stopped by to tell me that she was being shipped out to another squad in the morning, but left me her contact information so that I could reach her as well as pass on a message that somebody wanted to meet with me at the Human Embassy the following morning.

The rest of the day was spent with me mostly thinking about who wanted to meet with me and why, especially considering the fact the only two people I did know here were Commander Adley and Kaitlin and although I hadn't seen the Commander yet I didn't think he'd setup a meeting in the Embassy and for a brief moment wondered if maybe Delta's biography on me hadn't help up and they knew that I wasn't exactly from here, but shook that thought off. Needless to say I didn't have the most relaxing sleep that night.

I could barely believe my eyes when I stepped foot out of the hospital and into the actual Citadel the next day. The hospital was on an upper level of the Presidium which offered a fantastic view of…well everything. It was the most beautiful and technological marvel I had seen but what surprised me more was how much it looked exactly like it did in the game.

"It really is amazing isn't it?" Kaitlin's voice said from beside me, causing me to turn and look at her.

"Kaitlin, I wasn't expecting to see you here." I smiled.

"Well my departure was pushed back an hour and I wanted to say goodbye again, besides I figured I could escort you to the Embassy."

I smiled "I'd like that." I replied as we began making our way towards a Rapid Transport car.

"So do you know what this meeting is about?" I asked as we got in the car.

"It's more just a debriefing than anything else." Kaitlin replied, although I had the feeling there was something she wasn't telling me, which made me a little nervous but since it was clear she wasn't going to tell me I turned my attention to the passing Presidium below, watching as the various races went about their daily lives before the car came to a stop at the embassies.

The area looked exactly like it did in the game which was good, meaning I knew where I was going. I started to head towards the reception area when Kaitlin grabbed my arm to stop me.

"I just wanted to say thanks again for everything you did to help out." She smiled "And you have my info so I expect to hear from you."

I grinned "I will, promise."

Kaitlin smiled before embracing me in a hug "Well good luck Robert."

"And you." I replied before she turned and walked away.

The receptionist told me that I was expected and to make my way to the ambassadors office, which made me get even more nervous as I walked up the steps and through the door until I came to a halt outside the ambassador's office. The holopad on the door was red so I knocked and waited, my anticipation filling with every passing second.

The pad turned green, followed by a hiss as the door opened to reveal Commander Adley standing there.

"Mr Kincaid, it's good to see you up and about again."

I felt a little relief flow through me and smiled "Thank you Commander, it's good to see you again too, it was quite a hit I remember seeing you take."

Adley chucked as he shook my hand "Yes, it felt like it too, although I think I got off easier than you."

I chuckled as well "I think that's a safe bet Commander." I replied as he led me into the room.

There were two other people within the room, an older man with greying hair and matching beard and another man I recognised to be Ambassador Udina. _Oh great, out of all the people in the Galaxy I wanted to meet this guy is the last on the list. _I thought.

"Mr Kincaid, I'm Admiral Ryan Mercer, it's a pleasure to meet you. Commander Adley has told us all about you." The Admiral said as he walked over to me and extended his hand.

I took it and gave it a firm shake "Thank you sir, it's a pleasure to meet you as well." I replied.

"Well I know how boring these debriefing can be so the sooner we get it started the better, wouldn't you say?" Mercer smiled as he motioned me to take a seat.

And so began several long hours as I retold my story from getting shot down by the Batarians to the final fight with the Krogan.

"And you expect us to believe that?" Udina said once I was done.

"It's the truth." I answered.

"So the Batarian's just shot you down for no apparent reason, I find that hard to believe."

"Well they were slavers, I would assume they wanted to capture me and sell me." I replied.

"With all due respect Ambassador…" Adley began "If it wasn't for us finding Mr Kincaid and taking him back to our base, he either would have been captured or succumbed to the wounds he sustained in the crash and he volunteered to help us complete our mission and saved our lives, whatever your trying to imply, your wrong."

Udina was about to reply when Admiral Mercer help up his hand "I tend to agree with the Commander Ambassador, the other members of his team corroborate everything, I think I've heard all I need to."

I couldn't help but smirk when Udina relented "Fine. Well if that's all, we can end this debriefing I have a lot of work to do."

I breathed a sigh of relieve once I left the room, Udina really was as big a dick in real life as he was in the game.

"How on Earth did that jackass get to be our Ambassador?" I muttered as Adley joined me and chuckled.

"Don't ask me, that's politics for you."

"Never was big on politics." I replied as the Admiral stepped out of the room and joined us.

"Not many people are son." Mercer grinned "Well now that the debriefing is over there's something I wanted to discuss with you, there's a bar just opposite the Embassy, we can talk there."

I nodded but felt a little nervous when Adley announced that he had to leave, no doubt he was leaving with Kaitlin on whatever assignment they had next. Still Mercer seemed like a nice enough guy.

I wasn't particularly surprised when the bar looked the same as it did in the game, although it was a different bar tender. The Admiral ordered us both coffee and headed over to one of the empty tables.

We sat in silence for a few moments before I spoke up "So you uh wanted to speak with me Admiral?" I asked.

"Yes, Commander Adley told me about your situation, that's a tough break. He said that you were heading to the Citadel and then back to Earth."

I nodded "That's correct sir."

"The Commander also told me your father served in the Military."

"Yes sir and there were a few others back when the United States of America existed."

Mercer nodded "Tell me, have you ever considered enlisting?"

I supressed the smile I felt trying to form and nodded "I've thought about it once or twice sir, just wasn't sure if it was for me."

Mercer smiled "I can understand that." He replied as he took another sip of his coffee "I'm going to be honest with you son, from everything I've heard from Commander Adley and his team I think you'd make one hell of a fine Marine and I think the Alliance could use you."

"I appreciate that Admiral." I answered "And I have to admit assisting the Commander certainly felt right in some way, like it was where I belonged." I replied.

"I had a feeling you might say that." Mercer grinned as he pulled out a datapad and slid it across the desk, smiling again when I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Enlistment papers." He added, answering my unasked question.

I activated the datapad and read through it, surprised to see how similar it was to the old USMC one I had filled out back in the day. It was your basic information really: Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth etc and looked back up at him.

"How did you know I would say yes?" I asked.

Mercer smiled again "As I read the reports, listened to the statements and watched the footage recorded from Adley's team's armour…you just had something that screamed Marine all over you." He paused and took another sip of his coffee "And I'm an excellent judge of character."

I couldn't help but smile at that, although it did show me that I wasn't as good at hiding certain parts of myself then I thought and wondered if Adley and the others saw the same thing.

"So if I fill this out, what happens then?" I asked.

"If you fill it out now I can file it today and there is an Alliance ship heading back to Earth leaving tomorrow, I can get you on it and it'll take you back to Earth. From there you'd report to Alliance HQ in Vancouver and they'll handle the rest."

I nodded as I drunk my own coffee before picking up the pad and filling it out before handing it over to the Admiral, already wondering what the future wold bring over the next few years…


	8. Chapter 8: Back to Basics

**Thanks for the reviews everyone and the new favourites and follows **

** CuHnadian: Not this chapter but she'll be popping up soon enough **

**Chapter Eight: Back to Basics**

"Move it you slackers, do you think the enemy is going to give you time to rest while he's chasing your sorry asses!" Gunnery Sergeant Frank Wilkins yelled as we ran up the hill on our cross country training.

Wilkins was a middle aged man with dark brown hair, short military cropped hair, blue eyes and was honestly the most stereotypical Marine you'd probably ever meet, right down to the yelling and insults and he definitely seemed to have it in for me it would seem, judging by the crap he'd already put me through here.

After I'd spoken to Admiral Mercer back on the Citadel things happened pretty quickly. After I left the Admiral I set up a bank account on the Citadel and sold my old clothes to an antiques museum for a few thousand credits and brought some normal clothes and rented a room at a hotel for the night before being shipped off to Earth the following morning and went to Vancouver as the Admiral had told me too, where my paperwork had been done and I was shipped off to the Alliance training facility on Titan.

The first month was comprised of learning about the standard weapon types and how to use and maintain them as well as Omni-Tool usage. The Omni-Tool is an incredible device and easy to use, I seemed to have a knack for it since I'd mastered most of its functions fairly quickly, unfortunately the one the Alliance provides isn't the best model out there so I'd have to look out for a better one.

The second month I met my drill instructor Gunny Wilkins, who had heard all about my activities with Commander Adley's squad as well as Admiral Mercer's recommendation. Which needless to say meant he assumed I'd gotten special treatment and pushed me harder than anyone else, not that I was going to complain, I mean I'd been through the USMC's training and fought on the frontlines before, this training would be easy…right?

I'd been so caught up in my thoughts that I didn't see the tree branch sticking up and caught my foot on it and got sent flying face first into the ground.

"Get up Kincaid before I have the others use you as a stepping stone!" Wilkins yelled. With a shake of my head I stood up, and ignoring the dull throbbing in my leg started running again, a little surprised when Wilkins appeared beside me a few seconds later matching my pace.

"I know you've been slightly better than the rest here Kincaid but don't you think for a minute that you're going to walk this." He said.

"I never said I thought I would sir." I replied as I kept my eyes focussed.

"Ha, yeah right. You "assisted" an Alliance Commander and his squad on a mission and got support of an Admiral and you're telling me you didn't think you'd have it easy?"

"Are you calling me a liar sir?" I asked.

"And what if I am?" Wilkins smirked, clearly trying to push my buttons; it was something else he liked doing…or trying to do anyway.

"Permission to speak freely sir?" I asked

"Go ahead."

"With all due respect sir I could have turned down the Admiral's offer to enlist, I didn't because I wanted to be here and I've been busting my ass to prove it and I think I'm doing pretty well, in fact I know I am since I'm beating most of the other cadets here, something you know to be true. And as for you sir, the only thing I can do is work hard and pass the training and if during this entire time you still don't believe me…well frankly sir that's your problem not mine." I replied before increasing my speed to get slightly ahead of him.

I was the second person to reach the end of the days run and took a guzzle of drink from the bottle stored in the 50 pound sack I had been carrying and was thankful I'd already done something similar during my USMC training although that didn't mean this was easy, because it wasn't. Wilkins assistant, who had come up here with a few shuttles came over and logged my arrival time at 1 hour 3 minutes, not bad for a 10k run, although the other guy who beat me did it in 57 minutes I was pretty happy with it.

Shortly after I arrived I spotted my best friend and roommate Ezekiel Manning arrive and jog over to where I was sitting and sat down next to me. Zeke was a 6'9, 320 pound mountain of a man, with a light brown skin tone and a shaved head who towered over pretty much everybody else in our group to the point that most people were afraid of the guy, which was their loss since the guy had a heart of gold, but I could understand why, the guy looked like the human version of a Krogan, and I should know.

"So I saw you and Wilkins chatting from my place behind you." Zeke said with a grin.

"Yeah, he still thinks I think I'm some kind of special case around here, despite my protests." I answered.

"Well you did have the support of an Admiral and a Commander." Zeke replied.

"Yeah, yeah." I muttered as the rest of the group eventually arrived along with Wilkins who looked through the results as the rain started to fall before ordering everybody onto the shuttles as it got heavier.

"Not you Kincaid." He said as he pointed back the way we had just come "Your running back."

"You've got to be kidding me." I muttered "On my own sir, I won't make it back until dark, and I don't have rain gear."

Wilkins nodded with a grin "Well Kincaid the sooner you start the sooner you be back and out of the rain won't you?"

Without saying a word I turned around and walked past Zeke "Do me a favour and have some hot chocolate and a pizza waiting for me when I get back." I said.

"Sure thing buddy." Zeke grinned as he patted me on the shoulder.

I'd been running for about half an hour and the rain had turned into a downpour making it both incredibly cold and reducing my visibility to only a few feet in front of me, of course having an eidetic memory comes in handy since I could recall the route in my head for the most part, and I had my Omni-Tool if needed, still this sucked.

"Stupid Wilkins, he only did this to push my buttons." I muttered as I ran "Had it out for me since day one, jackass." I added.

I was brought out of my vocalised bitching by the beeping of my Omni-Tool and glanced at it _Incoming Transmission _flashed on the screen.

I answered the call and had to supress the growl I wanted to make when I heard Wilkins voice through the line "How's it going Kincaid?" he asked, and I swear I could almost picture the smug grin on his face as he said it.

"Fine sir." I panted.

"Good, good just remember you'll still need to unpack that pack your carrying when you get back." He replied before hanging up, causing me to yell in frustration as I increased my pace, the sooner I got home the better.

It took me another 28 minutes to get back, by which time I was cold, wet and pissed off. To make matters worse I had to walk through the mess hall to get to the equipment room, where the rest of the cadets were gathered and I was not in the mood for any crap, especially when I saw Wilkins sitting at one table, grinning smugly at me as I marched past everyone. Judging by the looks on some of the cadets faces I had a grey cloud hanging over me as dark as the one currently unleashing the rain outside was.

Luckily by the time I had got rid of my pack, got out of my armour and had a shower the others had gone, including Wilkins. My anger had long since passed however and had been replaced with complete and utter exhaustion, although I did beat my previous time of 1 hour 3 minutes on the way there to 58 minutes, so that was a plus, still a 20k run was not something I had planned for or expected today.

I staggered into my room and collapsed on the bed with a groan, wishing for the day to end. A few minutes later I heard heavy footsteps approaching and opened my eyes in time to see Zeke walk in carrying a pizza box and a cup.

"Your hot chocolate and pizza." He smiled as I sat up and returned his smile.

"Thanks man, you're the best."

"I know I am, but it's nice to hear it from someone else every now and then." The big man replied "So how was the run?"

"Exhausting." I answered as I took a bite of the warm cheese and tomato pizza.

"I still can't believe he made you do that."

"Yeah well he's had it in for me since day one, besides I gave him a little attitude earlier so I might have asked for it in some ways, still I did it and proved him wrong so I'm calling it a win." I added with a grin.

"Good for you Rob." Zeke chuckled.

**Two Months Later**

As training continued I found myself torn between three career paths, thanks in part to both my USMC and Alliance training and the technological knowledge the beacon had downloaded into my head along with what I'd picked up myself I was left with either Soldier, Infiltrator or Engineer. In the end I had settled on Engineer for the most part since I found I did enjoy it, although I did divert from the in-game version a bit and stuck with Medium armour and using an assault rifle.

The other reason I went with Engineer was because you get to use an advanced Omni-Tool compared to the solider version, which with Delta's help I had upgraded with a few additional software upgrades as well as increased the overload output. Delta had also copied a part of his program into the device so that he could access whatever system I had hacked to help gather information quicker. As the Delta himself, the Alliance issued me with armour with an integrated VI which Delta had overwritten and replaced.

"Come on Kincaid, we don't have all day!" Wilkins yelled over the gunfire as I tapped away on my Omni-Tool, trying to hack the door.

I ignored the Gunny's shouts as I focussed on the lines of code on my Omni-Tool's display and matched the code fragments when I spotted them only to duck when a round impacted the spot just about and to the right of my head.

"A little more cover fire would be nice!" I yelled back as I continued my hack.

"I got your back man." Zeke said as he fired off a few rounds.

_Good ole Zeke, always there when I need him _I thought as I spotted the final code fragment "Got it!" I announced as the holopad flickered from red to green before the door opened.

"Everybody inside." Wilkins ordered.

Once everybody was inside I closed the door and locked it before applying my own hack to slow down the enemy.

"Nice job Kincaid." Wilkins said with a nod. _Huh maybe he's finally warmed up to me _"But I expected you to be done a hell of a lot quicker than that!" _Then again maybe not… _

"Well sir I would have been but I had to stop hacking every now and then to avoid the bullets that were coming at my head." I countered.

Wilkins nodded "That's true." He said as he turned to the other recruits "Your job as soldiers when an Engineer is attempting a hack is to provide cover fire and keep the enemy from killing them. Your just lucky this is a training exercise."

I was just thankful I wasn't the only one being chewed out this time.

"Okay people listen up, our next objective is to reach a terminal in the centre of this facility and download the shipping manifest for the stolen bomb those terrorist stole a few weeks back." Wilkins said as he activated his Omni-Tool and brought up a map.

"We are here." He said, pointing to a red dot on the south east corner of the map. "The objective is located here." He added as a green dot appeared in the dead centre of the map.

"Now here's where things get fun, we're going to split into three teams, each team will take a separate direction, one going north, one going east and the other west. Each path leads to the objective and each path is defended by the best instructors we have at the academy, they will not make it easy on you."

Wilkins stopped speaking as two other cadets arrived on the scene "I'd like to introduce you to Cadets Allison Wade and Martin Cordell, they like Kincaid over there are Engineers and will joining the other two teams." Wilkins said "In case you idiots haven't figured it out yet this will be a competition, the team that wins gets a weekend of shore leave, the losing teams will be filling in the winning teams duties while they are away."

All of us glanced at each other and smiled as we waited for our teams to be announced.

"Okay, team 1 will include Kincaid, Manning, Jenkins and Smith." Wilkins announced, causing Zeke and I to glance at each other and fist bump with a grin as Jenkins and Smith walked over to where we were standing. Alyssa Jenkins was a 19 year old Soldier who I'd seen strip and reassemble an Avenger in 20 seconds, and that was on her fourth day. She was only 5'4 in height but you wouldn't think of it if you spoke to her given the confidence that seemed to radiate off of her, she had long blonde hair that she tied into a bun and eyes almost matching the hazel of my own.

Next to her was Liam Smith, a short black haired young man who didn't really speak much unless he had something important to say, although I had to figure out if it was due to shyness or something deeper, since he had this Zen like quality about him…then again he was an Infiltrator so it made sense in some ways, although how handy a sniper would be in this situation I didn't know.

Wilkins had just finished announcing the other two teams and wished us luck before giving us our assigned paths. We would be heading north, team 2 was going east and 3 were going west.

"Those are your assigned routes, does anybody have any questions?" Wilkins asked.

"Are there any other objectives or just get to the terminal first?" I asked.

"Just get to the terminal first." Wilkins answered "Any other questions? No? Then move out."

Our four man team headed down the corridor, Zeke was on point with Alyssa next myself in the middle and Liam bringing up the rear. We passed several crates as we made our way through the winding corridor until I saw Zeke hold his hand up in a fist, telling us to hold.

"Radar says we've got a group up ahead." He whispered "Liam head up and do a little scouting for us."

I stepped to the side and let Liam pass, observing as he crept past us and crouched behind some conveniently placed boxes just ahead, no doubt the instructors had the upper hand over us, but that was part of the training.

I watched as he looked down his sniper scope for several minutes before he returned "There are 6 of them, all of them armed with what look to be Avenger's. The room is small, and filled with crates, lots of room for cover but little in terms of manoeuvrability, in a fight I'd say they have the tactical advantage."

Zeke nodded "Can we go around them?"

Alyssa activated her Omni-Tool and brought up the map of the building and studied it, although I already knew there wasn't one, having memorised the map already, one of the perks of having an eidetic memory, one glance at something and it's remembered forever.

Needless to say she shook her head "No, the first door in this corridor is past them."

Zeke sighed and shook his head "So does anybody have any ideas?"

While we all thought about it, my attention was drawn to the ceiling, specifically the air vent and tilted my head as I examined it.

"Here's a thought." I whispered as I turned to look that the group "If we can't go around them and we can't go through them, how about going over them?" I asked as I pointed to the vent over my head.

Zeke smiled "Nice but how do we get up there?"

"We passed some crates a few turns back, we could carry them down here and climb up." Alyssa added.

With us all in agreement we headed back to collect the crates and quietly carried them back and stacked them over the vent before the one I had spotted since it was round a slight curve in the corridor where the instructors wouldn't see us.

"Well Rob, up you go." Zeke said.

"Why me?" I asked "You're on point."

"Because it's your idea." Zeke countered with a grin.

"You suck." I muttered as I started the climb and pulled on the vent when I reached it, cursing when it wouldn't open. I scanned the vent with my Omni-Tool and used the fabricator to make a screwdriver to open it _I love this thing _I thought was I opened the vent and climbed inside and started moving forwards as I heard the other join me in the cramped duct.

It didn't take us long to crawl past the first ambush and find a vent to open far enough away from them to drop down without alerting them. "Nice job guys." Zeke said as he resumed his position on point.

We reached a large open room with only one exit on the other side, which was locked, as indicated by the red holopad. There were several crates spread out around the room, to provide cover if needed.

"Rob, you start working on the door, the rest of you take up defensive positions just in case." Zeke ordered.

With a nod I jogged over to the door and started hacking it, while the others ducked behind a crate each and aimed at the door we had just come through; however the second I started the hack the door they were aiming at locked as we heard gas venting into the room.

"What the hell is that?" Alyssa asked.

"I don't know but we need to get out of here." Zeke replied.

"I'm working on it." I added as I tried to ignore the gas hissing into the room, although I looked away when the others started laughing.

"What the hell are you guys laughing at?" I asked.

"This situation." Alyssa replied.

"It's not funny." Zeke said through a fit of giggles.

"It's probably…" I started before chuckling "Nitrous Oxide."

"I think your right." Liam added through a chuckle of his own.

I shook my head as I tried to focus on the hack but kept chuckling, which then turned into full on laughter along with the others, we were going to pass out soon if I didn't finish the hack but I couldn't stop laughing.

**Robert would you like me to finish the hack? **Delta asked through a message on the Omni-Tool.

"Yes I would." I answered aloud through another laughing fit.

"Yes you would what?" Zeke asked as he fell to the floor in hysterics.

I paused as I tried to think of something but came up with nothing "I have no idea." I laughed before a wave of dizziness washed over me and I too dropped to one knee, noticing that Alyssa and Liam were in a similar state.

Then I heard a beep as the door went green "Thanks D." I chuckled when I realised what had happened and quickly hit the pad to open the door.

"What?" Zeke asked as he glanced over to me.

"Uh…I said thanks me…you know for my awesomeness at opening the door." I replied as I pointed to the now open door.

"Ah." Zeke said, although his laughing had seem to stop somewhat, as had mine and the others as well. We also noticed that we could no longer hear gas seeping into the room; no doubt it stopped when the door opened.

As we made our way down the corridor we couldn't help but chuckle every now and then due to our exposure to the gas until we reached the last door, which again was locked.

"Brace yourselves folks." I said as I started another hack, I was about half way through when an screen seemed to pop up from behind a point in the wall to show the other two teams at what looked like identical doors as well, each of the Engineers trying to hack open the door.

"Come on Rob." Zeke said as I scanned through lines of code.

"Come on, come on." The other two echoed.

"You know you are not helping." I muttered as I kept scanning the code but I couldn't see any that matched, after 3 attempts I glanced at screen and cursed

"Aw screw it." I muttered as I stepped away from the panel and tapped on my Omni-Tool.

"What are you doing, we're going to lose!" Alyssa yelled.

I finished what I was doing and pointed my arm at the panel, a few seconds later the panel sparked and fizzed before turning green and opening.

"God I love Overload." I chuckled as I entered the room and ran over to the terminal in the middle of the room and started hacking it, this time it didn't take long until I had access and since there was only 1 file on the terminal downloaded it.

When the download had finished the other two doors opened and the other two teams rushed in, both of them thinking that they had cracked the door first until they had spotted us standing there, grinning.

"Sorry guys but you're a little late." Zeke chuckled.

"Congratulations." Wilkins's voice said as he entered through one of the doors. "It was close between all three of you." He added before turning to look at us, who were still chuckling every now and then "That goes double for you considering the gas you were exposed too, don't worry it wasn't life threatening amounts and we have medics on their way to treat you now."

"Cool." I replied "Now about our time off…"

Wilkins laughed "Yes you won this weekend off, as long as you finish your duties on Friday you can leave the base at 21:00 and return for regular courses as usual on Monday."

Our group cheered and congratulated each other as we celebrated before being called to attention again as one of the other teams asked how we got through the final door, apparently neither of them could spot another line of code either.

"Well Kincaid, care to answer their question?" Wilkins asked me.

"Uh…well I didn't actually uh _hack _it per say." I muttered.

"Oh?" Wilkins asked "Then how did you open the door then?"

"I used Overload on the door control." I answered with a shrug, wincing when the other two groups started complaining until Wilkins held up his hand for silence.

"So you Overloaded the door instead of hacking it?" he asked.

"Yes sir." I answered.

There was a brief moments silence before a smile spread across Wilkins face "Good job Kincaid." He said before addressing everyone "You never know what situation you may encounter on a mission, and believe it or not there are some times when no matter how good you are there isn't an obvious solution, or an easy hack. However that doesn't mean there are no alternatives for you to try."

He paused and looked at the three groups "For example, each of your paths was setup exactly the same and each of you attempted different things. For the ambush in the first room team 1 snuck past the instructors using the overhead air duct, team 2 discovered a hidden panel in the floor and snuck under them and team 3 decided on a head on approach and fought their way through.

In the second room teams 2 and 3 checked the room, discovered the gas tanks and disabled them which opened the door, whereas team 1 went straight for the hack and exposed themselves to the gas, yet were still able to hack the door and get through.

And the final door you all tried to hack it but only Kincaid trying something else when he saw that the hack wasn't working and in the end he and his team achieved what the rest of you did not, they finished the mission, remember that."

Wilkins finished his speech just as the medical team arrived and dismissed us so that we could be examined and treated; all the while we were discussing how we were going to be spending our free weekend.


	9. Chapter 9: Shore Leave

**Chapter Nine: Shore Leave & Graduation**

Friday was finally upon us, which meant that the shore leave we had won at the beginning of the week had finally started. Zeke had already arranged to spend the weekend with his family in California, what with shuttles taking less time than the planes of my time, something I still needed to remind myself of every now and then.

As for me, well I didn't have many friends outside the Alliance, even then most of them were still in training with me and they didn't have the weekend off and with no family I was left with pretty much nothing to do and I didn't particularly want to spend it on base.

"So what have you got planned for the weekend?" Zeke asked as he stepped out of the bathroom dressed in what he called his 'going out clothes' which pretty much translated to a black silk shirt, black jeans and black sneakers.

"I don't know to be honest with you." I replied "I was going to meet up with a friend of mine but she had to cancel."

"This that Kaitlin girl you mentioned?"

"Yeah but she called and said that there was a complication with her mission and she wasn't going to be able to make it."

"That sucks."

I could only nod in reply "I'll figure something out though don't worry."

"You can always come with me and visit my family, I'm sure they wouldn't mind and I'd love for you to meet them." Zeke replied.

"Thanks but I think I'll skip the pity invite this time." I replied with a grin "Besides I don't want to impose, you go and have fun with the folks I'll be fine." I watched as Zeke just looked at me "Seriously man I appreciate the offer but I'm good."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah I'm sure."

Almost reluctantly Zeke nodded "Okay then, but that's tomorrow, but tonight you and I will be hitting the town." He grinned as he wrapped one of his tree trunk arms around my shoulders and I could help but laugh.

"Just remember I'm nowhere near big enough or strong enough to carry your ass so if you pass out that's where you're sleeping." I said.

"Whatever you say short stuff, besides when it comes to the ladies I can go all night." Zeke laughed.

"Oh really?" I asked with a grin "Just like said when you were studying for the tactics exam last month, you remember that right?" and watched as Zeke turned to look at me, frowning when I did an impression of his deep voice "Yo Rob, don't worry about me man, I can pull all-nighters any time I want." I switched back to my normal voice "You remember that, what happened after that hmm? Oh that's right you fell asleep what was it…ten minutes later?"

"…Shut up."

I let out a loud chuckle as I stood up and shook my head as I walked past him to have my own shower and get ready. I decided to go in a dark blue shirt, light blue denim jeans and a pair of white sneakers.

We decided to head to a local club called the Orchid Lounge; they had good dance music, good drinks and everything else you would expect from a nightclub. Zeke and I wound up being pulled into a group of Alliance officers who brought us a few rounds and told us about some of their missions with me adding my story about the Batarians and Commander Adley's group which earned me a little respect.

Zeke disappeared a little while later and I lost track of him, although I did see him on the dance floor with a girl at one point before I lost him again. Several hours, and more than a few drinks later I decided to head home with a headache the size of New York pounding away in my skull. I staggered into our place and collapsed on the couch before hearing loud moaning coming from Zeke's room and glanced over towards it with a groan of my own before hauling myself off of it and out the door, no way was I going to listen to that all night.

I slowly made my way down the corridors, not really thinking about where I was going when I heard someone calling my name and turned around the see Alyssa heading towards.

"Hey Alyssa." I smiled with something slightly louder than a whisper.

"Hi, are you alright?"

"Oh yeah, just came back from the Orchid Lounge, combination of one too many drinks and loud music." I answered, seeing a smile spread over her face.

"Ah well you do know you missed your room right?"

"I'm not that far gone." I grinned "Zeke's a little busy right now and my head couldn't take the moaning."

Alyssa laughed "So what are you going to do, hang around the halls until they finish?"

I shrugged "I have no idea, maybe."

"Well I can't let that happen, you can stay at my place tonight." She replied.

"Thanks Alyssa I appreciate it." I replied as we made our way down the hall.

"Wow this place is nice." I said as we entered her room, it looked far from a dorm room in a military academy despite its drab grey colouring. There were a load of painting hanging on the walls of various themes, some flowers and cityscapes, including New York, Paris, London and Vancouver.

"Thanks but then again I am a girl so it would look nice wouldn't it." She laughed.

"I feel like that was an insult to my gender." I grinned as Alyssa made her way into the bathroom and returned a few seconds later with a small box in her hand and made her way into the kitchen.

"Just stating a fact, why what does your room look like?"

I paused for a moment "Uh…well it looks like…" I paused when I saw her looking at me with an almost knowing smile on her face, complete with an arched eyebrow to boot and sighed "It looks like a bomb went off in it, which was then inhabited by a large family of pigs."

Alyssa laughed as she poured a glass of water and dropped two tablets into it before walking out of the small kitchen area and over to me.

"Here you go; this should help with your headache."

"Thank you very much." I replied as I gulped down the Aspirin.

We made small talk while Alyssa fetched a blanket and a pillow from one of her cupboards before wishing me a goodnight and heading off to bed, with me following shortly after.

I awoke the next morning with only the slightest throbbing in my head which was a relief and stood up with a stretch and put the sheets away before heading to the bathroom to wash and making breakfast for Alyssa as a thank you.

"Mmm something smells good." Alyssa said as she staggered out of her bedroom and waved at me and I had to admit even with bedhead and still half asleep she looked pretty good, unlike me who looked like a zombie every morning.

"Just a little bacon, eggs and pancakes." I answered as she headed into the bathroom, hearing the shower turning on. She emerged a little while later fully dressed in dark green dress just in time for me to serve breakfast.

I'd found some maple syrup in a cupboard and had poured it over the pancakes after sprinkling some sugar on them along with the bacon and eggs on separate plate.

"I could get used to this." Alyssa grinned as she sat down "But you didn't have to do this."

"Please it's the least I could do after letting me crash here last night." I replied as she took a bite.

"This is fantastic!" Alyssa said as she started on the pancakes "If this the payment I can expect you can crash here as often as you like." She added with a grin as we ate.

"I'll remember that for future reference." I replied as I remembered the paintings I had seen last night and commented on them.

"Thanks, my girlfriend did them."

"She's got quite the talent." I replied

"Yeah she does, how about you? Are there any artistic talents hidden away somewhere in there?" Alyssa asked.

"Do stick figures count?" I replied.

"No." Alyssa chuckled.

"Then no, at least not in an art sense I do play the guitar though."

"Really, are you any good?"

"I like to think so." I countered with a smile.

"I'd love the hear you play sometime."

I grinned as I finished the last of my pancakes "I'm sure that could be arranged."

The conversation soon turned to our plans for the weekend, with Alyssa spending it with her girlfriend and I was still not sure, maybe I would head to New York and see what it was like now compared to back in my day.

I left Alyssa soon after that and made my way back to my dorm room, thankful that whoever Zeke had been with last night wasn't there, neither was Zeke who had already left. I headed over to my desk and turned on my terminal.

"Good morning Delta." I greeted the AI when he flickered into existence on the table.

**Good morning Robert, how are you this morning?**

"Fine thanks." I replied "So I've been thinking, what do you think it will take to get the Prothean outpost up and running again?"

Delta remained silent for a moment as he considered the task **A large supply of Element Zero to use as a power supply, materials to rebuild the damaged and destroyed architecture as well as materials for the production facilities to use in the fabrication of items.**

I nodded in agreement "Yeah that's what I was thinking too. It's going to cost a lot of credits to gather all of that, which I certainly won't earn on an Alliance engineer's salary. Let's start looking for those supplies though just in case, at least we'll know where to look and how much it'll cost."

**I will begin the search now and will store all information for use at a later date in a secure file.**

I spent the rest of the morning on the Extranet not really doing much since I couldn't think of anything to do and the afternoon tweaking my Omni-Tool some more to better its performance both in and out of battle.

When night fell I decided to hit the Orchid Lounge again. I'd been there about half an hour when someone bumped into me.

"Watch it, idiot." A male voice said from behind me.

"I'm sitting at the bar, on a chair not moving, how is that my fault?" I replied as I took a sip of my beer.

"What'd you say?" The guy countered, causing me to turn around. Standing in front of me was a clearly drunk 20 year old with a shaved head, being flanked by two of his buddies and I could tell they were looking for a fight and as much as I love a good bar brawl every now and then 3 on 1 are odds I don't particularly fancy.

Before I could try and talk my way out of it the guy must have seen parts of my Alliance tags dangling around my neck and chuckled "Well look at this boys, we've got a wannabe soldier here. You don't look so tough."

I smirked "And you don't look like a jackass and yet clearly you are one so I guess looks can be deceiving can't they?"

His two friends laughed at the insult "Oh dude he got you!" they said.

"You son of a…" the guy replied as he took a swing at me, which I ducked easily before grabbing the back of the guys shirt and used his momentum to drive him further forwards and face first into the bar with a thump.

I managed to right myself just in time for one of his buddies fists to connect with my jaw, which staggered me back, where I clipped the bar stool behind me and wound up on the floor. His second friend was already on me and I knew that his fist would connect before I could get a hand up to block it but saw another arm grab his.

"3 on 1 isn't exactly a far fight, how about we even this up?" A voice said as he pushed the boy back. Even from my spot on the floor I could see that this guy was built like a damn tank. I moved my jaw from side to side to loosen it up as I got to my feet and noticed that by this time the three friends were holding fight stances while my new ally and I exchanged a look and nodded in agreement, then all hell broke loose.

The big dude took on the two friends while the jackass came after me, we exchanged punches back and forth not noticing that other people had either tried to join in our fight or started ones of their own.

A punch connected with my nose and I felt warmth start trickling down and over my lip as I ducked another punch and connect with a punch of my own to his gut, hearing him wheeze and the air was driven out of him which I followed up with a leg sweep which dropped him to the floor.

I was so focussed on the guy I was fighting that I didn't realised that one of his friends had gotten away from the bug guy and charged at me and tackled me onto the bar. I brought my hands up to block the shots that he rained down on me before they stopped, only to be replaced with his hands wrapping around by throat.

I gasped for breath for a second or two before hiking my leg up and kneeing him in the groin, watching as his eyes went wide in pain. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a beer bottle on the counter and grabbed it before swinging it and smashing it over the top of his head, which knocked him out. With a little effort I tossed him to my right and to the floor before rolling off the counter behind the bar.

It was then I saw that the big dude who had helped me out was taking on the other friend as well as two others and since I owed him for saving my ass climbed up onto the bar and ran along it, dodging the few others who were fighting before leaping off of it and taking down one of the new attackers in the fight.

This guy was even more drunk than the idiot and his friends who had started this whole thing and it didn't take me long to finish him with a well-timed counter punch which left the last friend and the other guy but before I could do anything the cops showed up and broke it up.

We were let go after about half an hour once the bartender had confirmed that we hadn't started the fight.

"Well that was fun." My ally laughed as we left the Orchid.

"Yeah." I replied as I held the back of my hand up to my nose and pulling it not surprised to see blood there "Been a while since I've been in a bar brawl. Thanks for the save by the way."

"I can say the same, nice bar dive by the way." The guy replied as he turned to look at me and I realised he had a cut or two as well, a few to his face and several on his knuckles which I noticed as he extended his hand "Mike Stevens."

"Robert Kincaid." I replied as I shook his hand.

"So you're with the Alliance, a cadet?" Stevens asked

"Yeah, you?"

Stevens nodded "Just transferred here to finishing up the rest of my training."

"That explains why I've never seen you before; well at least you'll be graduating with us by the sounds of it."

Mike and I exchanged stories about our training as we made our way back and during our visit to the infirmary to get patch up, luckily nothing was broken and it would seem as though we got away without any trouble, at least that's what I thought until I saw the Commandant waiting for us just outside.

"My office now." He ordered.

"Do you two care to explain why two Alliance cadets are getting involved in a bar room brawl?" he asked from behind his desk.

"I…wouldn't really call it a bar room brawl sir." I replied.

"Oh really Cadet Kincaid, then what pray tell would you call it then?"

"I would have to classify it as…uh…as a scuffle sir." I answered.

"A scuffle?" he repeated.

"Yes sir a scuffle, not a bar room brawl sir."

"And what is the difference cadet?" The Commandant asked, slightly annoyed.

"Well sir the general rule is that there needs to be at least 20 people involved in a fight for it to be considered a bar room brawl sir and from what I could see there were only 10 people involved in that one…15 at a push."

Despite the fact he was a little angry I could see a small smirk appear on his face "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

"Well sir, I was sitting at the bar, minding my own business when another young man bumped into me from behind and accused me of bumping into him, I informed him that that couldn't have been the case since I was not moving and had my back to him, he then noticed I was a cadet, a few words were exchanged and then he took a swing at me, I ducked it and used his own momentum to send him into the bar at which point one of his friends hit me and I went down."

I paused to glance over at Mike "Cadet Stevens here stepped in to assist and it escalated from there, I don't know about the rest of the participant's sir but we only attacked 5 people and it was in self-defence sir."

The Commandant nodded and turned to look at Mike "Is that true cadet?"

"Yes sir, once cadet Kincaid was on the ground I knew the other two would jump him and I couldn't sit by and let that happen sir, not when they instigated it."

The Commandant looked between the two of us and nodded "Very well, the reports from the police and some witnesses said the same thing so neither of you will be reprimanded…this time, just try to stay out of trouble in the future and remember that you represent the Alliance even when you aren't in uniform."

"Yes sir." Mike and I replied.

"Dismissed."

"Well that was lucky." Mike muttered once we were out of the office.

"Tell me about it." I replied as we headed down the corridor before going our separate ways for the remainder of the evening.

The last day of my shore leave was ruining by Gunny Wilkins who heard about my little scuffle and had forced me to run the 10k course again, there and back lugging a 50 pound sack of god knows what, which was not fun, still overall it was a pretty good time and Stevens seemed like a good guy.

"So what's this I hear about you getting into a bar fight without me?" Zeke asked the second he got back.

"Who told you about that?" I asked.

"Alyssa, I saw her in the hall and she filled me in."

"Some idiot picked a fight, he lost." I answered "Welcome home, have fun?"

Zeke smiled "Oh yeah it was good to see the family again and some old friends too, was nice, still I can't wait to get off Earth and see what's out there."

_If only you knew buddy _I thought but smiled "It is something special." I said as I remembered my first thoughts of being in that shuttle and flying thought space, it was everything I had imagined it would be when I was a kid…well you know except for the whole getting shot down part, that sucked but overall it was one hell of an awesome experience.

"So other than get into bar fights what else did you do?" Zeke asked.

"Tweaked my Omni-Tool a bit, hung out with Alyssa for a bit and spent my nights at the Orchid Lounge." I replied and watched Zeke smirk "Where I only had the one fight." I added before he could crack a remark.

"Just do me a favour, next time get into a bar fight, make sure I'm there." He added with a grin.


End file.
